Grey's Family
by Iresol
Summary: A stoy about Charles Grey's family prior to and during Bob Brown's arrival in the Unit. Told from the POV of his girlfriend, what happened to Grey to make him the man he is during the TV Show.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Ok, so I have decided on doing a little fic on the swell TV show about Army Special Forces, "The Unit." I own nothing except a couple original characters, enjoy and review. Reviews and suggestions are always helpful!_

1.

So there I was, hunched over the toilet for what had to be the third time that night, sick to my stomach and nauseous, while my younger sister watched me with utter distaste. My younger sister who was keeping my secret, or at least one of them.

She handed me a wet facecloth, "How many more times are you going to do that tonight? People might start getting suspicious."

Had I been able to breath normally I would have swore at her, or told her I'd work harder on controlling the pregnancy hormones. But I couldn't do more then gasp for air. I wiped my mouth with the cool rag and sagged down on the floor. Praying it was clean.

If it wasn't my designer black pants were going to suffer, the same pants I had paid extra money for since they were supposed to hide the slight bump. I was only two months along and not quite showing.

"Do you want some water?"

I shook my head. I was not eating or drinking anything else for the rest of the evening. I'd learned my lesson. Damn hormones.

Her hand fell on my shoulder and she knelt down at my side. Looking nothing like me even though we shared a father. Her hair blonde mine was brownish gold, my eyes were chocolate and her's were green with golden flecks, she had freckles and I was pale as snow. "To think you did this willingly to yourself," she mumbled and I laughed, it came out a gasp but I had a large smile on my face. Which made her smile and that was worth it.

She fidgeted to get comfortable in her pumps, "We still have three hours here, we'll need some sort of story as to why you're throwing up everything."

All I could do was nod as I fought to regain my breath. I licked my lips and gasped, "Gum." Sarah had gum on her at all times. She reached into her pocket, unwrapped the foil wrapper, and then handed me the minty goodness. I hung over the toilet and chewed like there was no tomorrow.

She made a face and then turned her head. I listened too. Someone was in the bedroom that was attached to the bathroom I had found. Sarah stood and marched over to the door in some impressive heels. She whipped that door open and demanded of someone, "Can I help you?" The tone she used would have made Hitler look hesitate.

I listened and took deep steady breaths. Just breath…breath, I was a nurse, a little sickness was not unusual for pregnant women.

Someone, a male, hesitated and then asked, "I'm looking for a Victoria Wilkes…someone said she was back here."

"And just who wants to know?"

Atta girl Sarah, she should be studying law or criminal justice, she was such a little pit-bull.

"She left the lights on in her car. If you want I'll go turn them off."

Sarah peeked her head in and I immediately shook my head. I pushed myself up and checked myself in the mirror. Pixie haircut looked fine, dangly earrings still in, the red wrap was still in place and hiding my bump. I was good to go. My heels clicked on the tile floor and I walked out, patting Sarah on her little butt.

The man was young and looked harmless, in that choirboy next door way. Complete with perfect teeth, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a nice Christmas tree sweater. Perfect ensemble for a Christmas party.

There was no way I had left my car lights on and a slimmer chance I was letting him in it. First off, I didn't have a car, I had a massive SUV that could run over mere cars. Secondly, I was under orders to be on alert, be vigilant. The father of my baby had told me security had been breached at base. Nothing he could tell me about, but something serious enough to warrant a warning to wives and girlfriends of his men.

But as I passed Mr. Helpful I thanked him. Leaving him in the claws of my sister and headed out into the annual Christmas Party put on by my stepmother's mother.

"Victoria! Come here and taste this," my stepmother called, martini in hand. She was the type of woman everyone loved. You couldn't hate her if you tried.

Needing to get away from the watchful eyes of Mr. Perfect I scooted over to her. Mr. Perfect was probably not a security issue, but, he sent my sixth sense into overdrive. He wasn't following me around cause he liked my spiffy heels.

"Try this, Norma made it."

I eyed what looked like some sort of seafood roll. Not what I was going to eat while with child. Plus it smelled and a wave of nausea swept through me. Immediately and quite vigorously I shook my head, "No thank you, I had some bad clams earlier today and my stomach doesn't quite agree with me."

Sympathetically, my stepmother placed a cool hand on my forehead. The saint was a teacher. Like she could render me medical aide. "Why don't I go pour you some Gin and Tonic?"

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I needed.

"You know I don't drink," I smiled, holding a hand on my stomach, praying to God my tiny child would get the hint, and call the hormones to call down.

With a cock of her perfect freckled face, she frowned, "Why don't you go lie down in the guest bedroom. You look pale."

Ah, yes, I probably looked paler then usual.

My eyes looked around and fell upon Mr. Perfect and my father. Good, my father was as ill informed as my stepmother as to what I had been up to. He'd be really helpful if he were being milked for information.

I needed to get away from Norma's shrimp. Where would I go? As I pondered that question the thin phone in my pant's pocket began to vibrate. I pulled that baby out like it was a plutonium bomb and looked at the caller id.

Charles.

It was my companion and father of my child. The man I had spent the last two years of my life living with. Living in sin with if my stepmothers mother ever found out, the only few family members I had left, excluding my wonderful stepfather.

"Excuse me," I smiled and stepped away from the small circle gathered for discussion on Norma's shrimp. Fascinating as it was, I put the phone to my ear and headed into the mass of people in horrible looking holiday clothing.

"Yes my love, you rang?"

Wherever he was was just as noisy as where I was, "Baby, where are you at?"

"Christmas party, why? Did you get off work early?"

Who knew, he ignored my question. "Are you near a fax machine?"

In a minute I would be. I smiled and begged pardon and made my way through the crowded living room, down the hall and into the office of my stepmother's mother, or Stalin. "I am now, do you need the number?" I locked the door behind me and flipped the light on. Computer equipment and a wall-to-wall shelving collection of teddy bears looked back at me.

"Yes. Baby, I'm sending you two pictures. Tell me if you recognize them from anywhere, this is extremely important. Then shred the pictures. Ok?"

"Gotcha," I answered and then read the number of the fax off to him. Written so helpfully on the wall, next to other important numbers. Once done I plopped down in a rolling computer chair and put my sore feet up. Then came his voice over the phone, "I thought you weren't feeling well."

Casually I replied, unable to lie to him, "I'm not. But pain is weakness leaving the body, right?"

Mere feet away the fax machine began to make noise. He sighed and informed me, "The Marines are insane, you know that, right?"

"Umhmm," was my answer, he was seriously one to talk.

The first page was half done and I needed a foot massage, a good one. Heels had to have been made by a man without nerve endings in his feet.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes," I sighed, and the added for good measure, "Alone in a locked room. My father is your colonel, I am aware of how things work, darling." That just got me a sigh and a soft laugh. The fax machine buzzed and spat out a piece of paper. My feet protested, so I'd wait for the second one to come through.

"When are you coming home?"

How a grown man could become so clingy was a mystery to me. It probably had something to do with the little baby growing inside me. Which had turned the manliest man I knew into a basket of nerves. "When Sarah and I can get away. If you need company there are dozens of Army Groupies off-base, they'd love your company."

Silence followed that and I watched the second sheet come through, woohoo. I pushed off the desk with my feet as he gave me a verbal tongue-lashing, and managed to snatch the papers without getting out of my chair. Damn I was good. The chair slowed to a stop before it came to the wall. I never noticed, I was staring in utter disbelief at the black and white mugshot that stared back at me. Cell phone fell from my shoulder and onto the floor.

The wanted poster had half the writing blacked out. But I knew the man. I had had a restraining order out on him for the past two years. A restraining order the judge had just decided not to re-issue.

Wasn't that just perfect?


	2. Chapter 2

2.

"What do you mean you had a restraining order out on this man? Do you know who he is? Did he lay a hand on you?"

It was a good thing I was seated due to the shock I was experiencing. I flipped the page up and looked at another very familiar face. Dear God, I was now definitely a fly magnet for freaks. "It happened two years ago, before we met. He was following me around and asking about Dad. I went to court over this yesterday."

Charles was telling someone something while on the phone with me. I heard him bark at someone. Then he got back to me with a completely different tone, "So he was after information about the colonel?"

Information about Tom, my dad, or step dad, the only man I knew as a father, a dad, the man who raised me. The man out in the other room had the title of father, but wasn't even close. "Yeah," I breathed, "He broke into my house a couple times…"

With a tone of utmost control, Charles managed to seethe, "Did he touch you?"

How was that pertinent information? While I pondered that question someone knocked on the office door.

Shit, "Hold on," I told him as I shoved both papers into the paper shredder against the wall. It made noise as it ate the papers. I grabbed some other papers within reach and shredded them too. Really hoping they were nothing important.

Whoever it was knocked again. "Is anyone in here?"

It was Stalin.

"Me…I'll be right out!" I then put the phone back to my ear, "I know the other guy too. Do you need me to come home?"

The displeasure in his voice was oh-so-obvious, "We'll be right there. Give me the address." Which I did while Stalin knocked yet again, as if I hadn't heard her the first time. So I got out of the chair and headed to the door, unlocked it, and swung that baby open, immediately greeted by the smell of scotch. Cell phone on my ear too. Which didn't faze her in the least.

"Vicky, would you run to the food store and get some drinks? I made a small list."

The hormones in me wanted to snap her neck. I hated being called Vicky. Tori, and whatever else you could cut Victoria down to. She handed me a list of an eleven different spirits and headed back into the party.

Charles was already yelling, telling me I was not to leave the house. So I hung up on him and looked heavenly for inspiration.

"Miriam," I called after her. Calling her Stalin seemed so inappropriate, even to me. Almost immediately my phone began to vibrate. Likely Charles calling me to tell me I couldn't leave the party. The nerve, we were living together and having a child and suddenly he thought he could tell me what to do. It was cute, really it was.

Miriam had vanished, the wily minx.

"Is there a problem?"

Oh my God it was Mr. Perfect. I looked heavenly once again and wondered just what I had done. Had I been a bad girl? Was I being punished for something? Was it the living in sin? Having a child out of wedlock? The premarital sex?

"None at all," I managed to get out, with a toothy grin.

The vibrating phone in my pants was also not helping matters. Mr. Perfect noticed, "I think someone is trying to call you."

Thank you Captain Obvious. Maybe I could get Sarah to buy the booze? The last thing I needed to do was freak out the father of my child. The next to last thing I wanted was him here. Where was Sarah?

"Victoria, right?"

"Uh-huh," I mumbled, I stood on my toes and scanned the room for Sarah. She could have been hiding from Stalin anywhere. So I crumpled up the list and tossed it in the nearest unattended drink. My cell phone continued to vibrate in my pants. I was going to have to answer it, far away from Mr. Perfect. Which would give me an excellent excuse for getting away from him. Why did I not think of it sooner? I fished it out of my pocket and faked a smile, "Excuse me, sorry." Then I hauled it back through the mass of people and towards the front door

Phone to my ear, voice masked by said crowd of people, I answered it, "I couldn't talk, you know that patience is a virtue."

Dad's voice came over the line. Not the dad sipping eggnog mere feet away, but the dad who was working on Christmas Eve, again. Colonel dad came over the perfect connection, "Victoria. How are you feeling?"

All feelings of annoyance and frustration were gone. I stopped dead in my tracks and assured dad, "I'm fine. Really I am, I'm at the annual Christmas Party."

I heard him laugh. He told someone something, he too a _Master of Multitasking_, and then gave me his ear again, "Not stressful, right, and I'm the Queen of England. Look, Victoria, I want you to just go sit on a fluffy couch and relax. Some of the guys are on their way down to get you, and I don't want you to get stressed and miscarry my grandson."

The man had a point. As a nurse I could understand and logically concur with his observation. So I looked around, spotted a nice big fluffy chair, and took a seat in it. If Stalin came by I could tell her the colonel told me not to move. She was intimidated by said colonel: it could have been his rank and powerful presence, or the fact that he called her a drunken old hag. That was a great Fourth of July party

"I'm seated," I reported into the phone.

"Good, now I'm going to get off the phone and look into this restraining order. Then I'm going to call Ted to see about getting Charles on-base housing. I'll feel better if you're living here again."

It was pointless to argue. Plus one of my relatives, a biological uncle was fast approaching. He sat down beside me with a mug of hot tea in hand.

"I'll call you when they get here, ok? I have to go." Which was beyond ironic since he was usually telling me that. Thankfully he understood, I closed my phone and looked to balding but kind-hearted Uncle Dave. Who handed me the mug, "It'll soothe your stomach."

Good old Uncle Dave, I smiled and took the mug, took a sip, and tried my best not to spit it out. It was utterly disgusting. I hoped it showed on my face. He then added, "It should also help with the nausea."

Nausea?

I blinked, trying to pull off confused, "What do you mean?"

As if he were _Master of the Universe_ he calmly replied with, "Your cheeks are flushed and you haven't been able to keep anything down. Plus you never turn down seafood. Your mother was the same way."

I neither denied nor confirmed what came out of his mouth. I merely smelled the tea suspiciously.

"Is Paul the father?"

I made a face, "Who? Not saying there is a father. I'll neither deny nor confirm my medical state at this given time." When Dave pointed to Mr. Perfect I gave him another face, "God no, that man is annoying. Who is he anyway?"

Dave's kind musical voice made the information bearable. "Paul? He's a reporter for some magazine. He's doing a big article on the Special Forces Community over at the base."

Oh did he? Which meant he was poking around me on a fishing trip. Wasn't that just perfect. But was he looking for information on my dad or my lover? Either way he wasn't getting anything out of me.

I kept an eye on Mr. Perfect while Dave continued his fishing trip, I never spilled the beans, but I never denied anything. After a solid ten minutes passed the front door to Stalin's house opened and in strolled my manly man, who was clearly not dressed for the party. Not that he didn't look good enough to eat, oh no, being some sort of yummy Hispanic Carib mix, his bronze skin was so healthy looking, his curly hair pulled back, and a great body was hidden beneath the jeans and jacket. He looked just good enough to eat.

Damn, bad hormones, down hormones.

I hopped up and he spotted me, he started for me, and I shook my head. Then pointed to Mr. Perfect who had his back to me. Charles cocked an eyebrow. So I held up five fingers, five minutes.

He countered with two.

So I ducked into the mass to go get my purse.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

"Vicky, have you gone to the store yet?"

Stalin had found me. Damn! She must have smelled the growing fetus in my body, demons usually could. Purse in hand I stood and forced the biggest smile I could manage. The hormones were displeased. They wanted blood. Then they wanted sex, and then they wanted a twelve inch Subway Meatball sub with a ice cold Mr. Pibb but no ice.

"No…I have to run. I'm really not feeling well at all."

Stalin's perfectly penciled in eyebrow rose. Her Christmas Tree Light earrings swayed as she took in my statement, "You look fine to me. Infact…you look as if you're _glowing_."

Oh my God she knew, she _ could _smell fetuses! Had my purse not been on my shoulder it would have hit the floor. All I could manage was, "Beg pardon?"

Sure there were a million other things on the tip of my tongue. None of them were socially acceptable though. Charles was such a bad influence. I'd have to spank him later.

"Is there something you want to share with me? An announcement perhaps?"

An announcement?

Oh! Like_, I've been having the best sex of my like with a Sex God, who, by the way has a body male strippers would envy and worships the very ground I walk on. We've been living together and now are having a child, and still having gymnastic type kinky sex._

What came out was, "It's the anti-biotics the hospital gave me."

Then said Sex God appeared behind Stalin. Charles had never been patient. Though I guess I should have been glad he just didn't toss me over his shoulder and haul me out of the house like Tarzan. "Baby, lets go, I'm hungry and Subway won't be open all night long."

Stalin blocked the way to Charles. Her head whipped around and she narrowed her gaze, "Who are you? I don't recall ever meeting you, or inviting you."

As if her gaze held no power over him he gave her a toothy smile, "You haven't. I wasn't, Victoria, angel, darling, love of my life, mother of my child, lets go now. Mack isn't going to wait forever in the truck."

Mack was here? Oh goody.

I pushed past the booze soaked Stalin and prayed she was really toasted, hopefully she missed the part about the child. When I saw the look of utterly disapproval and distaste across her face, after all, Charles looked like a hobo in her eyes, I could tell she was not pleased with my selection of live in boyfriends. How I wished I cared.

Charles gently grabbed my arm and led me into the mass of festive peoples, leading me to the door, woohoo! I glanced up and into his dark soulful eyes, "Do I really get Subway?"

A smile curled in the corner of his lips. His attention on me while he navigated. "I'm sure we can get Mack to stop on the way back."

The front door was within sight! Mere feet away!

"How do you feel?"

I glared at him. "I'm nauseas, horny, bloated, and hungry. How do you think I feel?"

I could see the word on his lips. The P word. However the word would not be uttered anywhere around my family. We all had ears like hawks. I smacked his cheek and glared, "Keep your mouth shut cutie or I'll leave you." He just laughed at me. His eyes scanned the coat rack on the door.

My coat was not up there.

"Victoria…where's your…" Then his eyes narrowed, "You didn't bring a coat! It's the beginning of friggin winter and your…ill, you don't need to be getting sick."

Oh my God, suddenly he was a doctor too. I smacked him again upside his head when Stalin exited the bedroom. I could see her clearly. It was the twinkling earrings that gave her away. Immediately like I was a gazelle I opened the front door and dove out into the cold snowy night. Her mouth was like 7-11, it never closed and I was leaving before she went and told the family.

Oblivious Charles followed me, "Don't ignore me. I'm half the reason you're ill. I don't want you or my offspring sick." He closed the door and jogged to keep up with me as I hurried down the snowy walk.

Just where had Mack parked his new truck?

Charles had his jacket off when I stopped, looking for the truck. Which was parked across the street among the many other cars. It turned on and pulled out upon seeing us. "Put this on and make me happy, babe."

I looked at him and glared, covering my pretty much flat stomach with my hand. The hardly there bump felt warm. "No! I'm hot! You wear it, plus, this kid is no bigger then a bean an surrounded by blood and other bodily organs, it won't get cold."

I glanced up at the black sky, bright stars were so beautiful. My breath came out in a fog and there was a nice crisp to the winter air. It was beautiful. And then Charles nagged me some more, "Don't argue with me. I don't want you getting sick."

As Mack came closer I spat, suddenly highly insulted, "I'm not going to get sick going in and out of a car. You know, this is why I won't marry you. You are such a woman!" Charles began to argue but I walked to the old truck Mack had recently gotten. My lover ran around and opened the passenger door for me and I climbed in in my heels. Crawled across the bench seat and sat down beside Mack, who looked at Charles, "Jesus, Grey, this woman is carrying your child and you can't even buy her a winter jacket."

Charles flipped him off and climbed in.

Mack looked to me while I hooked myself into the seat, "I wouldn't marry him either." As he drove down the street he turned the hot air up and I spotted a bag of Cajun trail mix, which I grabbed. When I sat up I noticed both their eyes in the rearview mirror, so I turned around and saw Mr. Perfect outside, jotting down our tag number. Standing in the middle of the street.

"Who the hell…" Mack murmured, slowing down.

"He's a reporter," I so helpfully added.

A look passed between Mack and Charles, it was the father of my child who inquired, "Did he ask you anything?"

I shook my head and reached in the bag of mix. Which was nearly empty. "No. Uncle Dave told me he's doing a series on the Special Forces Community though."

Mack sped up. He turned the corner and slowly wove through the neighborhood. "Did Uncle Dave happen to give you a name?"

Why yes he did. I munched on some nuts, "Paul…I could call Dave and ask his last name." For a moment there was silence in the truck. However, the looks that the two men sent one another were far from silent. Finally Charles said, while placing a hand upon my thigh, "Lets just get her back. If he follows us we'll call Ryan and see what he wants to do."

Mack said nothing but his eyes were glued to that mirror.

"Does that mean no Subway," I asked, literally feeling my heart break.

While his eyes never left the road or mirror, Mack told Charles, "Call Ryan and have him get her a sub. Rule one involving pregnant women Grey, obey them."


	4. Chapter 4

4.

On Daddy's desk was a twelve-inch meatball sub with cheese and onions, a Mr. Pibb and cookie. God it was good to be the daughter of the colonel. I planted my less the happy butt on the couch in his office and began to inhale the sandwich as if I had not eaten in days, weeks even! While I ate said sandwich I could hear Daddy outside speaking with people.

It was amazing, I was a grown woman, pregnant with my own child and I still looked up to the man, who wasn't even my biological father, as my father. Which was the exact reason why I wouldn't marry Charles. Which was probably nonsense, he would be an amazing father no matter what our living arrangements were, but in my crazy head I couldn't see him being a good father if we were married, just like my fathers.

The office door opened and Ryan informed Charles, "When I'm done."

"Well when will that be?"

Before he closed the door he informed my boyfriend, "Don't you worry about Victoria. I'll make sure she is safe."

The door was closed and in came Colonel Ryan, Colonel Daddy. With me face stuffed full of food and Mr. Pibb close by my side he waited until I was finished eating, knowing how difficult it was for me to eat and talk. So he pulled a chair from in front of his desk and sat down across from me. When I was finished and had some Mr. Pibb and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Pregnant," I hissed which made him smile.

He then handed me the two same pictures that Charles had faxed me. I wiped my fingers clean and took them.

"This was the man you had the restraining order taken out on?"

I nodded, "Yeah. It wasn't re-issued though since he hasn't bothered me since I had it taken out. He didn't fight it or anything."

"I wouldn't expect him to. Where did he first approach you?"

God, now I had to think. I rubbed my neck and looked around the impressive office. "School. He caught me after class one day. Asked me out…so I went out with him once…maybe twice, until I realized he was more interested in you and your exploits. After that I broke it off with him and he got weird. Went into total stalk mode. So I took him to court…he never showed, but the judge issued the order."

Thoughts raced through my dad's eyes.

He then showed me the other picture and I shook my head, "No."

I sipped more soda.

"You were living in the same apartment? With Sarah?"

I nodded and then paused, "I should call Sarah."

"You should call Sarah. I'll be right back." At that he stood and kissed the top of my head. I watched him walk out and then I grabbed my cookie. Smelled my cookie, which was far too sweet. The hormones did not like the smell of said cookie.

The office door opened and I pulled my feet up underneath me. Grabbed my purse and dug around for my phone. I needed to warn Sarah. Expecting to see dad come in with another question or comment, I was pleasantly surprised to see Charles.

"You're going to get in trouble," I sang, flipping my cell phone open and typing up a message to text to Sarah. Her phone was permanently attached to her hip.

"Bite me," he sang back, plopping down beside me. He kissed my stomach and then my lips while I attempted to get a message done. Which wasn't working very well so I pushed him back for a moment. "I have to send Sarah a message, so be calm Romeo."

His chin fell on my shoulder and his eyes watched me text.

Once the message was sent I looked at him, "Didn't my dad tell you to vamoose? I'm pretty sure I'm safe here in this building, of all buildings." The look he gave me worked like charm. Like it had the first time we met. I let the phone drop in my lap, "What?"

He shook his head and kissed my cheek. Then he began, "You know, if we…"

"We're not getting married."

Charles was not amused and I didn't care. "Victoria."

"No, this is not up for discussion."

"Look…"

I glared at him, "If you keep bothering me I'm going to stay with dad. I'll even give him strict orders not to let you in the house." At that his eyes narrowed. He could narrow them at me all night long. If he thought he could intimidate me just because he was one of the Army's most elite Special Force Operators, he was sadly mistaken. So sadly mistaken! "You're being impossible," he spat.

"Then you should have dated a groupie but you didn't," I snapped back, reaching for my soda. He quickly grabbed it from me. "I didn't want to date anymore groupies. And if I remember correctly you came onto me."

I reached for my soda but he wouldn't give it to me. Bastard. "I did not, and what were you doing in a Officers Lounge to begin with?"

There was silence and I grabbed my drink back. As I untwisted the cap and took a long sip. Only to hear, "Should you be drinking soda this late? Especially pregnant? That can't be good for my child."

Oh my God that was enough! I stood up, capped the bottle, and threw it at him. He was driving me up the wall and I was going to kill someone. I could probably get off on a hormonally imbalanced insanity defense. I grabbed my purse and got up, storming toward the door.

Charles was at my heels, "Victoria, Colonel Ryan said…" I turned and belted him with my purse. Then hissed in a dangerously low voice, "Don't talk to me right now. Now is so not the time to be talking to me at all. Or I will kill you with these here bare hands."

The office door opened and my father strolled in. Papers in hand and guards behind him. At the sight of Charles he sighed, but closed the door. Without looking at him he looked to me, "I want you to go to my house and get some sleep. These two men will go with you and stay there until I get off."

"I can go with Victoria," Charles spoke up.

"No Grey, I need you here for the moment.

In an act of utter maturity I stuck my tongue out at him, then kissed my father and stormed from the office.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Guard number one was cool, he sat down on the couch and watched Sponge Bob Square-pants with me. While Guard number two had the personality of a sponge. He stood guard at the door as if he expected a Nazi Invasion at any given moment.

I had changed into a lovely pair of plaid boxer shorts and a tank top. Still able to wear normal clothes. Guard number one even had some ice cream with me. Though it was all business when there was a knock on the front door. Guard number one stood up while number two peeked through the peephole and then demanded to know who was there. A very calm and pleasant voice came through the door, "Molly Blaine."

I dropped my spoon into the glass dish.

Why was Molly Blaine at the door? Guard number two looked at me and I nodded, "It's ok. She's a friend." I hoped. I hadn't seen her very often and when I did she was more of Aunt Molly then anything else. I got up as the guard let her in. She was the same Molly as always. Straight hair, always dressed nice, a smile on her face.

"Is something wrong," I prayed, hoping I had not done anything to offend the woman.

She strolled in. Looked around and smiled, "No. Not at all. Charles called me. He wanted me to come and check up on you. Make sure you were ok and not stressed out."

Oh he did did he?

Charles was going to find my foot up his ass. But I smiled, "I'm fine. Dad sent the babysitters. We're having ice cream."

Sponge-boy immediately told Mrs. Molly, "We have been posted here until the colonel returns, and have not been eating ice cream."

Right. Like that little miscommunication would cost him his career. Sponge-boy was so making general and I was the Queen of England. But Mrs. Molly came over and sat down beside me on the couch. She looked to the other guard who was all of eighteen, "Could we have some privacy? Please. I'd like to speak with Miss. Ryan."

Damn, I waved to my little buddy as he went off to patrol the grounds. I guess there was some sort of threat of invasion or something, Sponge-boy was pretty intent on his job. You just didn't find pride in one's work like that everywhere anymore.

"It's a little late for ice cream."

No it wasn't. "Dad was out of cookie dough."

Mrs. Molly took the bowl from my lap and set it on the coffee table. Wife number three had left the matching furniture. She had really good taste too. Too bad she was a nut.

In that no-nonsense tone of hers she set her hands on her lap and looked me in the eyes. I felt like I was back at Catholic School again. "Charles came by the house the other day."

Charles was so not going to be able to walk for days, DAYS! Talking to Mrs. Molly about our dysfunctional relationship, the nerve.

I was so telling Sarah of this.

"Charles tells me that you refuse to marry him. Also that you're refusing to even move in with him…" I opened my mouth to speak and her hand fell on my knee, "I realize that you are young and probably didn't plan to get pregnant. But Charles is a good man and he wants to make this right, he really wants to be there when he can."

I made a face of utter disgust. Well, logically the baby was a major surprise. Surprise! I wasn't that young though, I was in college for crying out loud. "Mrs. Blaine, I don't know what Charles has told you, but I'm not marrying him just because I'm pregnant. Before this happened we had no plans of getting married and now, just because I am slightly more hormonal, he wants to make it legal? Nope, that's not happening."

While her face remained calm and neutral, I could see she was not happy with my answer, so she then asked, "What about benefits?"

I almost laughed. But didn't, I stopped myself, "I make three times what Charles does and have my own insurance. A house and my sister are living with me so she'll help. Financially, medically, and everything else…I can support this kid if something happens to Charles, God forbid. And he is not living with us for his own safety." I flew between being utterly thrilled with having a little baby, to super pissed off and wanting to stab him for getting me pregnant in a matter of seconds, and often.

Molly opened her mouth and I grabbed her hand, "Molly, sweetie, don't worry, things will work out fine between Charles and me."

**A little later…**

Sarah had arrived when Molly left and not long after that Dad showed up. He sent off our two guards and handed the two of us passports, this got my attention. I looked up from where Scooby Doo and Shaggy had been solving a tedious mystery, Sarah examined her passport.

"Dad?"

She looked up, "Thank's Tom."

"You two are going to have to leave the country tonight. I have everything worked out. You'll be put on a private jet and flown somewhere safe until it is safe here. Sarah, you can go if you want, but if you go you will not be allowed to contact your family at all. No friends, no family, no nothing. You'll be starting entirely new lives."

I stared at him as if he had lost his damn mind, "What?"

Dad picked up my purse and took out my wallet. He began to take every card with my name on it out. "These men are after me. They want to hurt me and will hurt you to do so. This is the only way to keep you safe."

I gaped in utter disbelief, "What…what about Charles?"

"He can't know. I'll have your car dumped in the lake to make it appear that you had a accident." At that he took all my cards over to the fireplace and tossed them in. I was too stunned to do anything. I just stared, then Sarah asked, "Like, how pissed off are they?"

Dad gave her a look, he then grabbed her purse from the floor, "I can't tell you that." Before he want through it he asked, "Are you going with Victoria?"

Sarah looked at me.

I was almost sick to my stomach again. This could not be happening, there was no way. "Dad, he'll think I left him."

With his stern eyes and cool demeanor Dad told me, "And if these men find out you are pregnant with his child, they'll go after you and the baby to hurt us both. This is the best thing to do. Trust me."

Well I trusted him as Sarah nodded. He then pulled out her wallet. I was going to be sick. I watched him throw away our lives. I had always known what he did was dangerous, but this, this was nothing I had ever imagined.

As he burnt everything he told us, "Call no one. You talk to no one. The men that are coming will explain everything to you about where you go, and what you can and cannot do."

The man was dead serious.


	6. Chapter 6

_Authors Note: Ok, so to go with the storyline I am doing this from Charles and Victoria's point-of-view. If it is marked Charles then it is his pov, if not marked, then it's Victoria's._

6.

**Four years later…**

**Charles.**

Belize was always great.

Cheap beer, gorgeous women, and beaches that weren't covered with litter. Whenever I burnt out of the Army Belize was probably where I was going. Without Mack, who was in my damn spot in the bar. I always got the bar. He knew I always got the bars, bastard.

Which meant I'd have to find a different spot to do my surveillance. It wasn't the end of the world. I was in San Pedro Belize for Christ's Sake! But Mack knew that was my spot. He would pay for that act of childishness…I was definitely putting marbles in his gas tank.

I wound my way through the street packed full of tourists. Some festival was going on and there were ambassadors coming in from all over South America, Central America and Mexico.

Our objective being one of them.

He'd come into the small airport and stay just outside of San Pedro. Not a problem.

This would be a fairly easy job.

A bunch of kids ran past me, chasing a soccer ball, a few stray dogs weren't far behind them.

The sun was beating down on me. It was a beautiful day. Plus I could hear and see the ocean between the buildings.

It was paradise.

And here we were plotting an assassination.

I plopped down on a curb and put my feet into the dusty street. Bikes and golf-carts sped by full or locals and tourists. The few battered and beaten vans were covered with dust and parked, windows open.

Retirement here would be good.

I looked up and down the street. Barely two lanes, not the best for a route of escape, but there was a big ocean very close, as was Gitmo. Not far were the Florida Keys.

Across the street was an Internet café / coffee shop / Scuba Shop all in one. I could hear the owner on the phone yelling at the boat driver over a radio, yelling in English while the driver yelled in Spanish. There were profanities and curses going both ways.

It was beautiful.

At the coffee shop, which was actually a coffee bar, was an American. Cute from behind, blonde and in a bikini with sarong. Her official uniform. Flirting with some local dude named Armando.

Both of whom were ignoring a little boy who was chasing an iguana. A big ass iguana bigger then the kid who was maybe three. Dressed in swimming trunks and water shoes with a mop of curls on his head.

A boat, we could do a water exit.

The kid ran around chasing the lizard. His babysitters were busy flirting. Doing what lazy unmotivated people did. Led boring lives. The lizard ran into the street and the kid followed, wobbly, as if he wasn't used to the ground. Since he lived in Belize he probably spent more time on the water. In the water. Yada, yada, yada.

Where had the kid gone?

Who cared, I had work to do. I looked up and down the street. The airport was much too small for an escape. A water exit was best. Mack had better have the same idea floating around in his head.

Maybe a Scuba exit? Dive out to a boat and head out to Gitmo? Sounded good to me. The one little airport would be hell getting out of when we got done.

"Charlie!"

Damn that voice was vaguely familiar. My head whipped around, the yelling came from in the office of the dive shop.

No one was calling me.

No one knew me here.

The little kid went running towards the office. Up the sidewalk in his water shoes. Towards the female voice, probably his mother from the urgency in which he was heading toward the voice.

Then he tripped and fell flat on his hands. For a moment he was quiet. He pushed himself onto his knees and looked at his hands. He wiped them on his round little belly. Obviously a well-fed and happy child. Blood was left on his belly. His little hands were cut from the fall.

A cat walked up behind him.

Rubbing against his side and then he let out a scream. Freaking the hell out at the sight of the cat.

It made me laugh.

Until the kid's mother came out of the shop. She ran towards the sound of the screaming. Blondie came out from behind the bar.

I knew blondie and I knew the mother. Before I knew it I was on my bare feet. She ran over to her son and picked him up with ease. Setting him on her hip and wiping his little hands on her t-shirt. Sure, she was tanner, a little heavier, and her hair was long. God it was long. It was pulled back in a ponytail and there were sunglasses on her head.

It was Victoria.

The blonde was her sister Sarah.

The Earth could have sucked me through the ground. I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't feel anything. They were supposed to be dead. Gone. I heard Mack's voice but it didn't register.

She was holding the boy, comforting the boy and cleaning his hands while yelling at Sarah.

She was holding my son.

Sarah saw me. She saw me and her eyes went wide enough they could have rolled out of her head. She patted Victoria's arm and pointed to me. Victoria looked, she looked beautiful as always. She saw me and almost dropped the boy, Charlie, our son.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

I almost dropped my son, which would have been so very bad. I handed him to Sarah and shoved her towards the coffee bar, "Take Charlie home and pack."

For all the trouble Sarah caused she knew exactly how to react in an emergency. She scooped her nephew up and hurried off as I turned to face Charles. How was I going to face him? I didn't think I'd ever see him ever again. While my broken heart kinda began to mend itself, I didn't dare hope. It wasn't safe for him to be seen near me.

With the sun hot on my back I watched Mack appear. Wonderful Mack who hadn't aged a bit grabbed Charles. He wrapped his arms around Charles like a bear and whispered in his ear, pulling him from the street.

It had been Mack who had moved us last time, Mack and some new addition to the team.

Mack hauled Charles back as I ran into the office. The battered concrete was scalding beneath my barefeet. But they had calloused over. They hardly felt the change from the hot sidewalk to the cool linoleum floor of my office. I ran behind my desk and pulled out my small safe.

In a matter of seconds the safe was open and I grabbed the cell phone that was in there. Then took out the sealed envelope that was in there. I ripped that baby open and dumped the battery out. I shoved that part in and turned the phone on. When it began to vibrate I thanked every known deity to man.

When it was on I dialed my father's number and peeked out the window. Mack was dragging Charles away, down the street. Perfecto.

"Jane?"

I looked up at Armando as satellites connected for my call, or however phone calls went through.

"Take the day off, Armando, I'm going home in a few minutes," I told him.

Without a word he backed out and walked off.

When he was gone I grabbed my purse and saw Sarah had taken the van. God forbid she have to walk the two miles home on foot. Which was probably for the better. She needed to get a head start on the packing.

There was ringing and I kept my eyes peeled out the window. No one picked up though and it went over to voice mail. What did I say? I really should have memorized those emergency codes.

"This is you know who and…oh God, he's here…the little ones dad…I have no idea what to do, call me on this number, we'll be packing."

**miles away…**

We lived in a three-bedroom time-share on the beach. It was on the third floor and had our rusted bicycles outside chained to a fence. Across the street was a dilapidated shack that was the food store, "Bill's."

I hauled my butt up those stairs and slipped twice. Damn tourists, they tracked sand up the steps and didn't sweep it away. So by the time I was at the top my one knee was bloody and I was swearing like a sailor.

I cleaned my feet off in the bucket of water and stepped in our home.

A blast a cold air came out. Sarah had set the A/C to artic tundra again. But Sarah was not packing, Sarah was infront of the TV as I closed and locked the front door.

"We have cable again," she informed me, then pointed pointedly at the TV, "There's a Tropical Depression heading our way."

What!

I marched over and grabbed a t-shirt on my way which I put on my knee, which was bleeding a lot. It was a dark blue shirt which was good. I wove around the table and couch in order to see this storm she was fixated by.

I spotted my son in the corner of the room. Probably chasing a lizard.

On the TV was a mighty large storm heading for Central America, right for us. Well wasn't that just perfect.

I fell on the couch and looked over my knee. Cautiously I lifted the t-shirt up and blood continued to ooze. Well then, I needed to apply a little more pressure then. The TV only had a quarter of my attention. The blood had another quarter as did my son, and then the rest of my attention was focused on not thinking about Charles. Which was not going well at all. But I had to not think about him. I had to be strong, I had said goodbye to him once. It was over. It had to be over. And then the H word was spoken by weather lady, or Miss. Boobs.

Hurricane.

My head whipped up fast enough to give me whiplash.

Sarah swore and my son repeated the stanza word for word, perfectly. We were too stunned to correct him though. I put enough pressure on my knee to clog a geyser.

"Ok, now what?" Sarah wanted to know, she looked at me and there was a trace of mild concern.

We weren't big fans of hurricanes.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note: Ok, since this is in the future, after Hector was killed time-wise, I've hardened Charles up a bit. It seems to be he'd have to after working in his line of work for so long. Any input is great! Enjoy!_

**8.**

**Charles.**

I was so past angry I couldn't see straight. My head throbbed and I could have murdered someone. Honestly I could have. Killing never really bothered me. It had to be done and I could turn off that caring part of my brain, do it, and not look back.

But now I knew I could have killed someone. Well, more specifically Col. Ryan. Especially when Mack shoved me into our hole in the wall hotel room and snarled, "Are you trying to blow our fucking cover! Keep it together, she's fine, she's been fine for years! We've been watching her!"

He might as well have hit me in the gut.

My feet went out from under me. My ass hit the bed and I gaped at him. Mack closed the door, locked it, and ran a hand through his short red hair while he thought about what exactly he was going to tell me.

"You knew she was alive," was all I could get out.

"Yeah I knew she was alive. I moved her from Portugal to here. Ryan's keeping her hidden and I never told you that."

The crappy room ceased to exist.

I watched Mack walk over to his bag and dig out a water-purifying kit.

"Why? Where is she?"

He opened took his canteen into the equally crappy bathroom. I heard the water run and then his voice, "Look, all I know is that it's a number of things. First off the Ukrainians are pissed at Ryan and found out about her, which was going on when he sent her off. Then there was something about some sort of police cover-up concerning her late-fiancé, and she knew a little too much, they wanted to put her in witness protection, and Ryan wasn't having any of that. I forgot what the third thing was." He then came out canteen in hand. "I'm not telling you what to do but…Ryan's going to have her moved. She gets moved if she gets looked at the wrong way, or Ryan gets a prank call. So you can bet your pretty little ass that she's getting moved ASAP."

He could see the wheels turning in my head.

As he began to drop the tablets into his water he gave me his 10 cents. "Grey, you've done your mourning for them. Plus you can't bring them home."

"Would you?"

I knew it was a cheap shot and took it anyway. He was deathly silent. Closed the cap on his canteen and shook the tablets up.

Like hell I was just forgetting them. That was professional Mack speaking.

"Where are they," I wanted to know.

Mack untwisted the cap and took a sip of the water. Which always tasted like shit. But we were used to it so his face remained passive. Mack simply pointed to the time-shares up the beach. "It's her and her sister and the kid, so their balcony should be easy to spot."

Her, her sister, and the kid. Lets dehumanize them a little further shall we. I kept my mouth shut and hauled ass out the door. I jogged out to the pristine beach and jogged up towards the expensive time-shares. It was darkening due to storm clouds rolling in with dusk. The cover of darkness was just what I needed. Especially if I was going to be prowling around.

As I walked past the pool on the beach and looked up at the nine condo's, three stories high. There was one that had bright towels hanging over the rail. Dresses and bathing suits hanging from the ceiling.

The top floor in the middle.

For a moment I considered scaling the side of the building and breaking in. Then I thought better and walked around the sandy path. To the front where I climbed stairs. Sandy stairs. Damn tourists. Someone had slipped and busted their knee from the looks of it on the sand halfway up.

The further I climbed the more blood was on the steps.

Someone on the top floor had fallen. Well wasn't that perfect. I hit the top and had a beautiful view of the green island. Trees as far as the eye could see and a mighty strong breeze.

It was great and all, but I had bigger problems. I pounded on the door and cleaned my feet in the water bowl.

I heard when someone leant against the door and peeked through the peephole. It was Sarah.

She shouted, "It's your baby-daddy. You want me to let him in?"

Maybe I'd kill her first.

Victoria's voice barely made it through the door. She told Sarah to wait a minute, which took forever. It took every ounce of will power I had not to kick in the damn door.

Finally it opened and Victoria slid out, a bright scarf wrapped around her knee that was soaked in blood. Dressed the same as earlier but her cheeks were flushed. Beautiful as always, her eyes met mine.

Sarah closed the door.

Locked the door.

I was so killing her.

"I am so sorry Charles. I had no choice. But…you cannot be here, it's not safe for you to be around me."

She sounded so serious, so scared.

My God she was so beautiful. I reached out to touch her and she grabbed my hand, pleading with me, "Charles, I am begging you. You can't be here. If they are here they'll see you. They find, they always find us. You can't be here if they do." She was almost in tears and her grip on my hand was so strong. I couldn't let go of her if my life depended on it.

A noise caught my attention.

I peeked over the side of the front porch and saw Mack wander underneath the stairs. Then I looked back to her, "I don't care, let them come after me. What do you think I do for a living?"

Tears brimmed her eyes.

I reached up and wiped them away which only made her cry. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me. Not caring who saw. Let them come. If they always found her then I could find them. At first she stiffened, but then she just gave in. She clung to my t-shirt with her fingers and buried her face against my chest, like she always did. Her tears burnt through my shirt as sobs wracked her body. Which fit so perfectly against mine. "I'm so sorry…"

When my arms wrapped around her she was nestled against me. It was better then sex. It was that missing piece.

"I'm not leaving you," I told her, smelling her hair which smelled like pineapple.

The front door opened and Sarah was there. "Just come inside already. The neighbors don't need another show."


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

"Does your friend want to come in?"

Charles didn't look up but he told Sarah, "No." He could seem to take his eyes off our son, who had gone to sleep a good hour ago. Nestled in his bed beneath a homemade quilt.

"You sure? The mosquitoes can get pretty hungry this late and he looks pretty pale."

Thank you doctor Sarah.

I gave her a look and she threw her hands up in the air. "Fine. Let him stay out there, what do I know, I've only lived here for three months." She then glanced once more out the sliding glass door down into the pool area, where Mack had camped out on a chair. She then looked back to me, "Wake me whenever your dad calls. I'm packed and ready to go." At that she walked off. Out into the living room and to the stairs. Her bedroom was upstairs in the loft.

Only when her feet could be heard upstairs did Charles say anything.

Sarah was a shameless eavesdropper.

She had no shame at all.

"How's your knee?"

Who cared. The bleeding had finally stopped. Three towels and a t-shirt later. "Still attached," I told him.

He looked up from Charlie. The two were a perfect mirror image of one another. Charlie was just a tad paler then his father and had no goatee.

None yet anyway.

Charles ignored me and came over to me. With noble intentions probably. But I held up my hand. The last thing we needed was to rekindle anything. The man had known every last button of mine and I doubt he'd lost his touch with time.

"Please, lets not do anything stupid. I'll clean it out when you go."

He didn't listen.

Old Charles would have, this Charles in front of me walked up to me and scooped me up. He carried me out of Charlie's room and into the kitchen where he promptly set me down on the counter by the sink. Obviously no was the wrong answer.

Wordlessly he unwrapped the facecloth from my knee. Which was pretty well soaked in blood. He dropped both facecloth and scarf that held said facecloth in place in the trash. While it had indeed stopped bleeding there was a nice and deep laceration. At least three inches across, maybe even four. And it was deep.

"There is a first aid kit under the sink and clean dish towels in that drawer," I pointed, knowing what he was thinking.

I'd lay money that he had passed his medic training.

As he gathered everything he told me, "Your dad is having an appendectomy. He may have had it, so he'll be out of touch for at least a day while he recovers. You need to tell me if you called him because of me, or are you in danger right now?"

We were always in danger.

We were always getting found, dad still hadn't come across the leak.

We were to call him whenever we were found, by friendlies or not.

I scooted back on the counter and pulled my leg up. To closer examine my knee. "Because you're here. He wanted us to call him whenever we were found out. Or thought we saw someone we could have known, or got a weird call, or threatening letter…anything."

Upon finding everything he dropped them beside me on the counter and soaked the blue dishtowel. While the water ran he told me, "We can take you safely out of here. Hide you. Maybe it's the link with your father that causes you to be found out, what if I hide you?"

Hide me, our son, Sarah. It sounded too good to be true. It'd probably be safer too. I chewed on my lip and ignored his arms, which had more muscle then before, his calves too. He'd been hitting the gym more.

"I can't ask you to do that. People have died just by knowing us. I can't let you get hurt too. I'd rather have you out of my life then hurt." Like I had decided years ago.

He didn't react at all. Instead he wrung out the towel and came back to me. Looking in my eyes with those soulful brown eyes of his. All while he cleaned up my knee, "What about our son. He's half mine. He'd be in danger too."

God how I didn't want to be reminded of that.

I blinked back tears before they came, "I couldn't exactly leave him with my father when I had to leave and when he was born…I thought about sending him home to you so many times. But…I couldn't. Sarah refused to leave my side." And then the tears came again.

How I wished I could have pretended it was from his scrubbing. But it wasn't, it was cause I wasn't brave or strong as I pretended to be. Plus I was so tired of having to flee. Run, hide every time we got threatened. I just wanted to send Sarah home with Charlie and let them get me so many times. I was so tired of being scared.

Thank God he wasn't a mind reader.

He would be so ashamed. Him and my dad.

I couldn't imagine if Sarah wasn't with me. He pressed harder, cleaning deeper and the pain radiated through my knee. I didn't make a peep. That made him look at me. He took some packet from the box and used a strong smelling something to clean my wound. "If Ryan doesn't get back with you when this storm hits, you're leaving with us."

Fine.

I wasn't going to argue. Or tell him that we have many back-up plans. That was need to know information. Besides, he seemed pretty sure of himself.

The back of his hand brushed against the underside of my thigh. But his eyes stayed on my knee. As if it were an accident. I almost thought it was.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

I almost laughed at him.

Yeah, like I could trust someone that much. Which was what I told myself. I just never found anyone that measured up to Charles. No one else would do. I shook my head, "I've had my happiness. You gave me everything I needed and a purpose now. What about you?"

There was no shrug.

No joking or anything that was youthful or juvenile, he had definitely grown up a lot since I had seen him last. "There have been women." That was it.


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

**Charles**

Mack kicked my foot, waking me from my combat nap. Which was turning into a very good dream that involved Victoria and a can of whipped cream, with a black thong, and matching thigh high stiletto boots.

"Guess who is flying the President of Columbia here?"

How the hell was I supposed to know? I sat up and looked around the hotel for a coffee maker. No coffee maker. God I needed something strong. And something to kill my hard-on. "Your mother?"

Mack threw his sweaty t-shirt onto his bed. It was soaked. "The local Sarah was flirting with. Armando."

Ok, he had my attention.

"Neither sister has exited their condo. Which leads me to believe they are closed for today. Go over there and make sure the plane is still coming."

The surprise I felt didn't even register on my face.

Sure, it surprised me a little. But my mind was so far in left field I was no good to Mack. I rubbed my forehead. I was still blown away at how scared the mother of my child was. How could Ryan do that to her? Why would he let her handle all of it on her own, alone? How could Mack not notice the terror on her face? Mack had a wife and family.

"There is a hurricane coming. Are the representatives still coming?"

Mack's gaze narrowed.

Apparently he was not familiar with that little fact. Too bad we didn't have a TV. He walked to our phone and lifted the massive thing up, flipped up the antenna and started dialing. No more radio silence from us.

I got up.

Didn't bother to check how I looked, I was pretending to be a local. I strolled out the door as Mack hissed at me. I stood in the doorway of our crappy little motel room and saw something so out of place I almost laughed.

Three white men in khaki pants, dress shoes, and black turtlenecks.

They might as well have been wearing neon signs. They walked up to locals and tourists on the beach with pictures, asking in heavily accented voices for information on the people in the pictures.

My heart turned to stone.

One came over my way, closer and closer. I heard Mack drop the phone and kick some items out of sight. Then he ducked into the bathroom and the sound of a weapon being cocked was clear as day.

The man held up a piece of paper with two pictures. One of Sarah and one of Victoria, they were old pictures from their drivers license, years old, but still good. In an Eastern European accent that could very well have been Ukrainian the man asked me, "You see these women here? Anywhere?"

I took the picture and looked closely.

A calmness claimed me.

That calmness that cleared my head and got me into trouble as a child. I nodded, faking an accent, faking an eager smile, I nodded and stepped back, "Yes! Yes! Miss. Stone! Yes, yes!"

He stepped closer, over the threshold. The other two men weren't looking my way. I grabbed him by his throat and spun him around, he never had a chance to think, or react. I pulled him out of the doorway and into the room. Grabbed his neck in one hand, his chin in the other, and twisted. Effectively snapping his neck before he could react.

I shoved him on the floor and grabbed the paper.

I closed the door and drug the body into the bathroom. No blood, a perk of neck snapping. At the sight of the body Mack pulled back the plastic sheet that passed as the shower curtain. "Two more out there that I can see. Dressed the same too."

"You go check on them. Hide them somewhere, I'll get rid of the two others."

I looked at him, "Why don't I go after them?"

Mack gave me a look, "Cause you're not thinking with your head right now. When you don't think with your brain you screw up."

How I wanted to argue.

But he had a point.

**A little later…**

When I was positive I wasn't followed and there was no one watching the condo, I climbed the stairs and tested the doorknob.

Locked.

Thank you Ryan.

So I knocked. I pounded on the door until it was opened, Sarah was there and I pushed my way in, closed the door, and locked it once again.

"Hey hey hey! What is your problem! Do you mind? We are trying to…"

I didn't care.

"There are Ukrainians here…where's Victoria and Charlie?" the condo was quiet except for the weather channel. Sarah paled three shades and pointed, "Down at Bill's getting bacon…" I didn't hear the rest. I ordered her to stay put and hauled ass out the door, down the stairs, and across the one lane dirt road into the shack that was the local market and gathering place.

No heat or air.

Screen door and banana leaves for the walls and ceiling.

Though there were meat coolers and shelves with severely overpriced food. I checked around, no men stood out as hired killers. So I went towards the coolers. Charlie was mere feet away from Victoria admiring a bottle of purple ketchup. I scoop him up and marched over to her. Bumped her with my hip and murmured, "They're here. Take Charlie and get back to your apartment."

She looked at me with such fear. Fear and submission to the fact she'd have to go, flee again. As if she had given up.

"Now," I told her and she listened.

Years ago she would have sassed me.

Now she took Charlie from me and hurried down the small aisle of the shop, but when she got to the end she wheeled back. I never got to ask, I heard the heavy accent, heard the big boots upon the soft worn wooden floor. She ran past me like a lamb fleeing from a wolf and hid at the end of the aisle.

I stayed put.

Another one dressed pretty much the same, but with a ponytail approached the teenage boy at the counter, having the same sheet with pictures. "You see these girls?"

I caught the kid's eye and shook my head. He better get the picture. I'd have no problem killing the man in front of the kid. It wouldn't be the first time.

In his Mario Brothers t-shirt he shook his head, "They moved."

"Where?"

The kid shrugged, "Away. A while ago, a month maybe."

The man seemed to notice me. He turned and asked me, "You know them?" He shoved the picture in my face. There was a row of canned fruit by my hand. I could smash his skull before he had a chance to yell. Or crush his windpipe. Kick his thigh and shock his femoral artery. There were so many ways I could kill him.

"Went to Columbia," I told him, using the same fake accent from earlier.

Another one came in and shouted, "Johan and Petar are gone! Liam too!" Both men hurried out, never knowing how close they came to dying.


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

I raced across the garden, jumped a fence, and ran through some dried up mangroves. They were here which meant we had to leave. I prayed that Charles would behave when I bolted out the back door.

He was a trained soldier.

He could take care of himself.

I on the other hand was not a trained killer. With my son in my arms I hauled ass down the main street on the island and ran into Wazina's house. She was out but her house was always open. I ran into the two-room shack and into her kitchen/dining room/living room to the town phone. I dug in my pocket and dropped a dollar into the jar of change. Then grabbed the phone and dialed the home, all while Charlie whined and complained about the sweltering house.

"Hush Charlie…Sarah! They're here! Time for Plan B."

There was a pause.

Followed by, "Plan B? What's Plan B? Girl we have to get out of here before your Baby-Daddy finds us, or the moody red-head."

She was so right.

But where would we go? Dad hadn't called back and I was now getting worried about him. Really worried about him. Plus I couldn't go back to the apartment and call him.

I heard something and looked up, just in time to see Mack come in the room, gun drawn, pointed at me. "The moody red-head is with me. Dye your hair and get our emergency bag. Then go move our boat. Meet me at the Caye in two hours."

"One hour," she countered.

Mack looked around the room. As if there was someone hiding somewhere. Yeah right.

"Fine, but I'm at Wazina's so don't freak if I'm late."

She began to say something but I hung up on her and looked to Mack, who held a hand up to silence me. I listened. He was the professional after-all.

"Mommy," Charlie whined.

I held a finger to my lips, "Hush sweetie. We're playing the hiding game again."

Charlie groaned.

Obviously my son was tired of playing the game. Well he wasn't the only one. I hunkered down as someone else walked in the house. I placed my hands over Charlie's little ears and pressed his face into my shoulder. That was just what my son needed, to be deafened in a gun battle.

Just as I had suspected gunfire erupted. It came from the other room and through the walls! Gunfire from more then one gun. I hid behind a chair. A wooden chair at that and by the grace of God alone none of the bullets hit me, while I shielded Charlie from bullets. And Charlie was not happy. He screamed and cried.

Mack grabbed my arm and literally dragged me. He hauled me across the room like I weighed nothing! Did he know there was no backdoor?

I felt the need to share this with him as the other people continued to shoot at us. Had to be the Ukrainians. No one in Belize had guns. I looked up at him to share this fact with him. But he was busy. He shoved me behind an old huge refrigerator from the eighties and peeked into other room, firing a few rounds, until there was only one gun shooting at us. A great improvement in my book.

When he had shot the last shooter he looked to me.

Motioned for me to follow.

Since the Ukrainians had never been this close to killing me before, I followed Mack and prayed that they hadn't found Sarah. I briefly thought about asking, but my tongue would not work.

**Three hours later…**

It took us three hours to go six blocks.

Not that I was complaining, I was alive and Charlie was safe. Mack had made sure we weren't followed as he took us to a motel on the beach known for drugs. He ushered me into a room where Charles was packing and Sarah was in the bathroom, complaining about a body in the tub.

There could have been three and I would have been fine with it.

Charles looked up at us beyond relieved. But he stayed where he was which was more then fine with me. I didn't want to be touched and I wanted my son in my arms.

I held my terrified son in my arms and leant against the wall.

When Mack closed the door Charles told him, "It's done, the conference was called off. I lost reception after that due to the storm. I say we head to Panama with the girls."

Mack pursed his lips.

I had no idea what they were talking about. Nor did Sarah who came from the bathroom, still in her nightclothes, a complaint on her lips. However at the sight of me she ran across the tiny room and wrapped her arms around me. She held me tightly and Charlie began to complain, "No. No. No. Go way."

She let go of me and I noticed blood on her arm.

Charles and Mack were arguing over something, oblivious to us. "Are you bleeding," I asked her and she shook her head, which meant I was bleeding. I had been hit. I silenced her with a look. There was no way my shirt was coming off with Charles in the room.

So I followed Sarah into the bathroom.

Sure enough there was a body in the tub. A dead Ukrainian body. Wasn't that just grand? She closed the door and I sat Charlie down on the floor. After I closed the shower curtain, he really didn't need to see a body before the age of 5.

Sarah then lifted the back of my shirt up.

"How bad is it," I asked.

"A scratch," she breathed, then added, "Your shirt is soaked though. Good thing it's black…what are we going to do? We have to get off this island before the storm comes."

That was obvious.

While she mopped between my shoulder blades with a hotel towel I seriously thought about what we were going to do. While we had to haul ass away and fast, it was nice having protectors for once. Nice not being the protector. Being able to relax and let someone else worry about everything.

Sarah shoved the shirt up farther and there was pain. Searing pain that laced across my shoulder. But I didn't scream. I clenched my teeth and dealt with it like a big girl. After all I had delivered Charlie on the rooftop of a building in Italy alone, well Sarah had been there, but she had fainted. Then there was the time I had been caught briefly by them, I still held the scars from the knife, until Sarah showed up and hit the man over the head with a glass blender.

"Take your shirt off. I think you took one on the shoulder."

Obediently I listened, I was glad I had worn a bra. I pulled my shirt over my head and heard her sigh. "Yup…how did you not feel this one? It nicked your neck. It's bleeding all over and down your back."

Adrenaline?

What I told her was more along the lines of, "I was busy running at the time."

Which was also true.

Sarah muttered some profanities beneath her breath and Charlie sang them perfectly out loud. That was just wonderful. "Charlie Thomas Ryan," I warned and his eyes lowered, suddenly sad. He could go from emotion to emotion in a matter of seconds.

Then the bathroom door opened and Charles peered in. His eyes fell on the four perfectly healed stab wounds and then my eyes. Outrage obvious in his brown eyes, which seemed to darken.

Also outraged from behind me, Sarah spat, "Do you know how to knock? It's not hard! Make a fist and tap it against a door!"

At the sound of his aunt's raised voice Charlie ran to me and clung to my leg, hiding. He reached up for me. He wanted up, he wanted to be held. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy, up, up. Me up."

I knelt down to avoid letting him see all the blood and picked Charlie up. His little arms and legs wrapped around me.

In a voice I wasn't going to argue with Charles growled, "We need to talk. Now."


	12. Chapter 12

After Sarah gave the bed a thorough inspection for bugs, reptiles, sand, trash, and disease, which she could apparently spot with the naked eye, she allowed me to put Charlie down. Charles had given me a plastic bag with food in it, a MRE, and he assured me it was food. So while Charlie munched happily on a lunch of freeze dried meatloaf, and Sarah eyed a stain on the carpet with narrowed eyes, I gave up everything to Mack and Charles, who watched me like two hawks.

I sat on the end of one of the beds.

Sarah mere feet away, my son closer, so blissfully unaware of how screwed up our lives were.

"Before I met you I had dated a guy, Nikolai, and he was a undercover FBI agent. I guess somehow the people who he was investigating found out about him and killed him."

There, ha! I had said it out loud to them, who still eyed me as if they knew that was only half the story. Even Charles eyed me. As if he didn't know me. Which in all honesty, he'd only known me a few years. We'd been apart more then we were together, his son too.

"And…" Mack added.

Damn they were good. Like human lie detectors.

As much as I wanted to keep it to myself I knew I had to tell them. Something was wrong with Dad cause he would have gotten back with me, they were our only hopes and they had to know what they were protecting us from.

"I guess Nikolai had evidence against them. He hid it somewhere in my name a bank, or storage place, or something…and they think I know what it is, and where it is."

A red eyebrow rose.

"I would have told them where it was and where they could find it. Hell I would have drawn them a map!"

Mack looked to Charles who gave him a nod, I guess he was letting Mack know I was being truthful, when I could have told him so in the first place. Charles then asked me, "How does your father think they keep finding you?"

The hell if I knew!

I shrugged.

Sarah however had her own ideas, which she vocalized, "The damn CIA."

Dear God.

I rolled my eyes as she ranted, "I've spotted this CIA guy around whenever they have popped up! Wherever he is they then magically appear."

Right.

Mack and Charles seemed interested, Mack crossed his arms and sat down on the end of the other bed. "How do you know the guy is CIA?"

Just what I asked Sarah many times and she told him what she told me many times, "He looks like it."

My sister the mind reader.

Charles rolled his eyes and Mack blinked, "What?"

"Don't ask me how I know, it's a gift. Victoria…remember when you were dating Nik and I told you he was a Fed? Remember? Or when that professor at the college was hitting on you and I told you he was a perv? Or when I told you Charles here was in Special Forces?"

Her reasoning was amazing, "I remember. But you couldn't have foreseen any of the past four years?"

She snorted, "It doesn't work like that."

Right, it didn't work like that.

Charles cut me off as I was about to tell Sarah what she could make-work. "What about the other two things? Mack said you three were being hidden because of three events. What are the other two?"

His eyes were so dark, so intense.

I glanced down at the floor. Almost ashamed, embarrassed, but they needed to know. It was probably stupid in his book with what he dealt with daily. But it was bad enough I had to hide. But so stupid, I really should have been more careful. "Back when we were dating I was up in Raleigh on night. I saw a uniformed police officer taking a bribe…and he saw me. The guy he was bribing shot him. He threatened me and the police found out, and it didn't go well. So both sides were threatening me and then I told Dad…and a week later we were shipped off."

"You just never thought to bring this up with me," Charles spat.

Mack didn't cut in. Great.

I chewed on my lip, eyes on my red painted toenails. "It wasn't your problem."

"We were dating! You were pregnant with my son! How could it _not_ be my problem too!"

I was too tired to argue.

In the past I would have, I loved to argue and debate with him. I was too tired. Tired of getting yelled at. Tired of getting ordered around. Tired of being challenged and threatened. Tired of everything in general.

"What do you want from me Charles? I screwed up and I've been paying for it, I'm still paying for it," even my voice sounded tired, defeated.

I heard him move and Mack quickly spoke up, "And what else? I specifically remember Ryan mentioning something about the Ukrainians and him."

Charles had moved.

He was closer to me but I still couldn't look him in the eyes. So I looked over at Mack and shook my head. Sarah added defiantly, "That goes in with number one reason. The particular family the colonel has caused problems with was the family that her late lover was undercover with. When said family made the connection they were not pleased. Giving them another reason to kill her oh-so-painfully. You'd really think they'd have bigger fish to fry then Victoria…Nope!"

I looked over my shoulder at her.

Where she was seated now on the pillow, as if it were a throne for her eminence. "What! It's so true! Ukraine is so booming with organized crime now, they could be doing so much business if they would leave you alone. Think of the resources they are wasting chasing after us…I should so write them a letter."

Yeah, that's what she needed to do.

Mack pretty much ignored that last part, he quietly asked Charles, "Ryan's pissed off the Ukrainians?"

"He's done a lot. It wouldn't surprise me, we've all pissed off someone," Charles answered.

Oh wasn't that the truth.

I really hoped that was enough for them to chew on. Work with. Like that was enough for the two Operators to work through.

Oh yeah, right.

I wasn't dealing with just any Operator. I was dealing with Charles. Who inquired, "And what's the third reason you were shipped off."

"Hey, curly, I got shipped off too. She's not alone in this chaos."

Thank God I wasn't. Thank God for Sarah.

I ran my seriously short nails through my hair. I could lie. Lying wasn't so great though and right now really wouldn't work in my favor. So I told the truth, kinda, but it wasn't the real reason. "I was failing my math class."

Charles's voice rumbled, "Victoria."

Like they needed yet another challenge.

"I was…I was…I was being stalked and it was getting progressively worse." Another one of those need to know things. I was so bad with relationships.

From behind Sarah added, "I told you he was a nut. I told you not to date anyone out of pity. Did you listen to me? No!"


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

Charles was so mad he wouldn't even look at me. He managed to vanish for what was left of the afternoon. Mack told us it was because he had work to do. Right. And Sarah was Judge Judy.

Mack handed me a box of blonde hair dye.

I blinked and looked over the box. Sarah vocalized clear and obvious outrage, "How's she supposed to dye her hair with a body in the tub?"

Mack looked as if he wanted to hit her. He bit his tongue and I told her, "Sarah…not everything needs commentary."

Her eyes bulged, "Well he can't just expect you to lean over the body and…"

"Fine! I'll go get something to put it in. Stay here," Mack snarled, utterly out of patience with her. Which I completely understood. He gave me a pointed look and I nodded. Of course we would. He grabbed a pack and shoved his feet into flip-flops and quickly exited the room.

I turned to Sarah, "Could you try not to argue with everything he says! And Charles says!"

She waved me off and ran to the bed.

She grabbed a pack from the floor, "Lets go."

Go where?

My eyebrows met in confusion. She picked up her sleeping nephew from the bed. "I stole some things from them and texted Armando. He's meeting us outside the grill. He'll drive us back to his place, let us clean up, and then drive us up to the docks and we can go to Belize City. We still have some time before the hurricane comes."

She was out of her mind.

"No Sarah. Please no, lets just stay here with them."

Sarah actually stomped her foot.

She then demanded of me, "When have I ever been wrong? Tell me! Plus I've been reading along of books by Suzanne Brockmann, I could plan anything now. Just trust me."

Even though she had been reading a lot of military romantic fiction novels, she was usually right. She had great intuition. I was pretty sure she had a plan. "What are you stealing," I wanted to know.

Casually she shrugged, "Just a few guns, a grenade or few and some night vision goggles. Along with their satellite phone and some MREs."

Preparing for war were we?

"Do you even know how to work a gun?"

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I saw Black Hawk Down."

I took my sleeping son from her and followed her out of the hotel room. How could things possibly get any worse? Really?

**Later that day at Armando's house…**

When I met Armando I was pretty sure he was a drug dealer. Not only was he the only Armando on the island. He was huge and had dread locks, tattoos all over, and had one of the islands few vans. But then I realized he was a swell guy. He was great with Charlie and taught Sarah and I how to drive boats, and run a business off tourists.

So when he found out Sarah's plan for our flight from the island he was bummed, sad to say the least. Sarah wasn't particularly happy since she was loosing a bed-buddy.

But he still agreed to help us. "I'll take you into the city. That way I can bring the boat back here with supplies."

From the battered old orange couch in his living room Sarah agreed, "Fine. But we go tonight. Then we can sneak inland. Find a car and head towards Panama."

Panama was the plan.

Dad had a friend who was commanding officer of the Army Base down there. So the roads sucked. It wasn't that far. Maybe we could get plane tickets. Flying out tonight was not an option, too windy.

I strolled over to Armando, hair all full of the dye from the box, "Are there any dry spots?"

The large tanned man looked over my hair from forehead to the nape of my neck. "Nope. You know…I'm going to miss you girls, and Charlie."

Sarah pointed her scissors at Armando.

She was giving herself a haircut.

We tried to change our appearance whenever we had to quick leave. Make ourselves harder to spot. Sometimes it even worked.

She then went back to cutting her hair in a bob as much as she could manage. I dropped down on the couch and looked at Charlie. Who was utterly thrilled with Armando's pet tortoise.

"We were never here though," I told Armando as something began to chirp. Chirp like a phone. I looked over to Sarah who lifted her head from above the wastebasket, scissors poised.

The phone she had stolen!

Maybe that was Dad finally calling! I hopped up and ran over to the stolen pack full of goodies. Eventually found the chirping phone, when I figured out how to open it and turn it on, I put it to my ear, "Hello?"

"Where are you! I'm going to kill you myself!"

It was Charles.

Since it was Sarah who had the plan I handed it to her, "It's for you." I then sat back down in the very unadorned living room. There was a simple coffee table with books on a Captains License and study guides, an open beer too.

Armando looked at me curiously from where he sat on the floor, Indian style. Mere feet away from a content Charlie.

"Yes? Oh, it's you…that's none of your business…it's not like your married to her so really you shouldn't be so possessive, you know most guys would kill to be able to knock someone up and not have any of the related responsibility…well that's not a nice thing to say." She was silent then for a while, I'm guessing while Charles shouted, and he could indeed shout. Though Sarah actually looked bored. She even trimmed her bangs, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder. Finally, unable to remain silent, she switched ears and trimmed her bangs some more, "Look, we've decided just to go with Plan D and will need no further assistance from you or Big Red…no, because I'm now in charge of our exodus and besides she's dying her hair. Without a body in the tub I might add."

Charles was going to kill her. I looked at my dive watch. Only three more minutes till I could wash my hair out. Then I'd be blonde. Not a natural blonde since my eyebrows were brown. Then I'd shave Charlie's hair. His beautiful curls were going to be gone.

Sarah seemed puzzled, "Hello? Hello?" She turned the phone off, "He hung up on me."

"Give me the phone."

She narrowed her eyes.

Armando rose, "I'm going to get another beer. You ladies want anything?"

"A coke," Sarah told his bare back.

"I'm going to try and call dad again," I told her.

Then she gave me the phone.


	14. Chapter 14

**14.**

**Charles**

Mack lifted an eyebrow and watched silently as I threw the hotel phone across the room, it shattered against the wall and left a large dent in the wall. I was killing that annoying bitch next time I saw her.

I needed something else to throw. Break. Destroy. I fell on the bed and listened to the wind blow on the shoddy window.

There was a big storm heading our way.

The mission had been called off. Top knew we were on our way back. Top also knew there was some bad weather. Which bought me some time. But the annoying bitch had a point, I could easily walk away. Victoria was not the same person she was years ago. I was not the same person I was years ago. The annoying bitch had a plan and may have been able to get them to safety. Not as well as I could though.

Then there was my son.

I had a son I didn't even know.

Victoria was alive and I had a son, both were so far up _Shit Creek_ and paddle less, it wasn't even believable.

I rubbed my chin.

How could she not tell me any of that? Hide all that from me. We'd dated for nearly two years.

"They were talking about a boat."

Mack was talking.

I lifted my head and looked at him, "What?"

He was watching me closely from where he leant against the wall. "When I found Victoria she was on the phone and wanting to meet Sarah at a boat. Plus they have the NVGs, so they're heading for the mainland tonight."

I didn't know whether I should have been glad or not. Pissed off I had covered. I was a man of action. If I didn't do something I wasn't going to be able to live with myself, "Where would they go? We're in Central America."

Mack was thinking.

"Can't go east due to that pesky hurricane," I added.

Then it hit him, "Panama."

Panama?

"There's an Army Base there."

There was an Army Base there. Run by one of Ryan's buddies from back in the day. That was a very distinct possibility.

And a long drive.

"Do you even want to go after them?"

I really thought about it. I did. Too long apparently, Mack got annoyed with me, "Are you seriously thinking this over! You have a son! A Son! So she got in a little trouble before she met you and didn't mention a couple things, women don't tell men like us everything. You think Ryan would let her tell you everything anyway? She was a terrified child when you met up with her."

I snapped, "_It would have been nice to know that at the time! I know I have a son! I know that now, it would have been nice to know that too!_"

Never one to back down, like Victoria once had been, Mack snarled right back at me, "_I wasn't able to tell you! Don't give me attitude!_"

I was silent.

Too pissed off to even argue.

"You know what, lets just go. If you want to let her slip through your fingers again, her and your son, you obviously don't deserve them! She's going to need someone a lot stronger…"

I hit him.

I came up off the corner of that bed, made a fist, and hit him harder then I thought. Sending him into the dresser and onto the dirty floor.

He stayed down there.

Not cause I had caused any permanent damage. But he rolled on his back. Looked up in my eyes as I tried my damned hardest to calm my ass down, and had the nerve to tell me. "She's been terrorized and living in fear for the past four years."

Well that was more then obvious.

I'd seen women that tired, that submissive to whatever fate came their way in countries comparable to hell.

"If you can't deal with that and all that baggage, then you just need to let her go again."

I hated when he was right about my life.


	15. Chapter 15

15.

"Hold Charlie," I told Sarah, who also held a quite large bag, and her coke on the beach. It was late and dark and windy. The sand stung my bare neck and probably got in my wound. That probably wasn't great for the healing process. But I handed Sarah Charlie and then wadded out into the surf with Armando. He swam onto the boat and climbed in.

I wadded out into the water and swam to the wooden post the Zodiac was tied to. I managed to get the rope unknotted. Feeling the salt water hit both my bullet wounds, which felt just wonderful. When a light shone over the water. A flashlight.

Armando grabbed the rope while I unwound it.

He then pulled me up into the rubber craft and started the engine. I was now successfully wet. Go me! I clambered to the front of the boat just as Sarah began yelling.

While I pulled the anchor up and set it down on the front of the boat, Armando shone the light toward the beach. "Sarah crab's can't hurt…_Victoria_." I heard the alarm in his voice. Looked up and over at Sarah, seeing Mack and Charlie at her side.

"Shit," I swore, then looked to Armando, "It's ok. I know them."

"You know them?"

Yes, I knew them.

Mack took the bag of stolen items from Sarah and slung them over his shoulder.

Wasn't that just perfect.

I looked back at Armando, "Drive the boat on over. They're coming too."

A muttered something came from his lips, but he steered the boat towards the shore. It crunched against the sand and Mack walked into the shallow surf, water barely touching his knees, he climbed on in before I could offer him a hand. He seemed well versed at entering a small rubber craft. He walked along the zodiac and back to Armando, setting the bag in the middle of the small boat.

Sarah came over with Charles at her heels.

She handed him her soda, "Hold this for me." She then held out her hand, which I took, and helped her climb on in. Charlie watched. Utterly thrilled, he loved boats. Small boat noises came from him.

Like always Sarah took her spot on the center, Charlie in her lap, she wrapped a blanket around the both of them. Balancing out the weight. Charles would have to sit on the other side.

I reached out for him as he pushed the boat away from the shore. Skilled, as if he were used to casting off. He then hopped up and slid over the side of the rubber float. I grabbed his shirt incase he slipped or something. Who was I kidding? I then pointed to the spot across from Sarah as Armando steered the zodiac. I was in my rightful spot. "Sit over there to balance out the weight."

He nodded.

Then crawled on over. Silent. He was beyond pissed off at me.

The engine roared to life as Armando powered it out into the ocean. Free of lanes and shallows. Out into the inner channel that was rougher then normal, but not as rough as the Caribbean was getting.

I held tightly onto the rope across the front of the rubber sides. Occasionally I would glance back at Sarah and Charlie, or Charles, or Mack and Armando while Armando pointed out things to Mack, both men talking amongst one another by the engine, which Armando captained.

I almost panicked after an hour passed when I glanced back and Sarah's lap was empty. Sarah sound asleep against the side of the rubber bouncy boat. My son had gone overboard!

As I whipped around I spotted him safely nestled in Charles's lap. His little hands covered the large hand that held him firmly into the nest of Charles crossed legs. He seemed content. Content or something similar since I could only see his little face by moonlight.

Finally I looked away, unable to watch the two.

**Belize City…**

A mere two hours later I clambered up onto a wooden dock and tied the small boat to a massive wooden post. In a pretty intense rainstorm. Which probably had nothing to do with the incoming hurricane, which had made the last hour of our trip hell, and woke Sarah up.

Someone was getting a nasty letter. The people at the Weather Channel, God, or the makers of the Zodiac Water-Craft: the possibilities were endless for her.

Armando stood and left Mack at the helm.

He then tossed over the anchor and tossed me Sarah's bag, full of our stuff. My bag, full of our important stuff. The baby bag. Then he picked up the bag Mack had when he boarded.

I caught the first three with ease and set them down on the rickety wooden wet dock.

When Armando, aka Hercules, tossed the last bag he grunted.

It hit me like a sack of friggin bricks.

It hit the dock and I went off the other side of the dock, into the warm Caribbean water. Not that it wasn't refreshing at ten o'clock at night. Nor could I not swim. I just really hadn't wanted to get all salty and sticky.

Charlie clapped and laughed as if I had preformed a great trick. Then came Armando's voice, "That one was a little heavy, Victoria."

"You think!" I screeched from the other side of the dock and in the water, between two small boats. Annoyed, I wiped water from my face, and looked for a damn ladder to climb up on. Now I was soaked. Hopefully the pouring rain would continue and clean off the salt.

Charles appeared above me on the dock. He held out his hand to me. Keeping his face as calm as possible. As if there was not a care in his imperfect world. I let the waves push me up and grabbed his hand and then his wrist with my other for good measure. Which wasn't needed. He just hauled me up, out of the water, and set me on the side of the dock as if I didn't weigh a thing.

"Quit playing around and grab your son, Victoria!" Sarah ranted from the boat, holding my son with outstretched hands up to us.

Immediately Charles stood and went to help. Hissing at her in a dangerously low voice, "He's my son too and don't ever forget that."


	16. Chapter 16

16.

"Where'd Big Red run off to," Sarah wanted to know as we hiked down a very wet, very muddy, and very dark street in Belize City, which was also pretty much empty as people prepared the insides of their houses for the storm.

"Does your mouth ever shut," Charles wanted to know.

Perfect, just what we needed, Charles and Sarah going at it. That'd really help out our situation

At the sight of an open food market Sarah then declared, "I have to go to the bathroom."

Charles looked ready to kill her, "You can hold it till we get out of the city."

"Well when will that be?"

For a moment I thought he was going to kill her. He actually stopped and turned to face Sarah, who was at my side, with Charlie on her hip since I was soaked completely to the bone. Sarah and Charlie had raincoats on, as did I, but they didn't go for a dip upon our arrival in the developing city. "You need to be quiet. Or I will make you be quiet."

Defiantly she demanded, "I'd like to see you try."

Ok!

I smacked her arm and prayed I could speak with my teeth chattering, which I could control whilst not talking by clenching my teeth. "Sarah just…hush. Be quiet. Please." And my teeth chattered. Charles looked my way but Sarah continued, "Well excuse me for standing up for my civil rights." His dark eyes never left me. I could feel his gaze even in the dark. He then quietly decided, "We're going to need a car."

"Bout time you started using your head," Sarah snorted.

I wrapped my arms around myself, hoping that would help me get warm. Right. And Sarah was going to shut up in just a moment. She switched Charlie to her other hip as Charles looked around the street. He had something in his ear and I knew he was chatting with Mack. They had gotten some things out of the bag'o'bricks.

Then he stepped into the deserted street.

Strolled over to an old old battered and rusted Blazer. When he tried the passenger door it was unlocked, so he ushered us over. He pointed to me, "In here." In the passenger seat, which did not make Sarah happier. But I listened. He was the trained professional. He then took Charlie from Sarah and pointed to a truck that drove towards us, lights on through the torrential downpour.

"Go get in there."

Even I was shocked, "Whose in there," I demanded. Even as the truck stopped I still couldn't see in it through the rain.

"Mack. We're taking two cars."

Sarah stared as if he were crazy.

He then told her, "We're not being followed. Now go and get in there with Big Red. And take this bag." He gave her one of our bags from my shoulder. The other I set at my feet, half expecting him to put Charlie in my lap. Which never happened.

Displeased, Sarah stormed over and climbed into the cab of the truck. Which waited while Charles opened up the side door of the Jeep and put Charlie in. Hooked him into the middle belt and then closed the door.

I glanced over between the seats as my door was closed.

Charlie was sound asleep. This was normal for him. I was such a horrible mother. I climbed out of my seat and took his wet raincoat from his small form, wet hat too, and set them on the seat. Charles climbed in and fussed with the console, hot-wiring the old batter Blazer. Quickly it started up and he turned the hot air on.

Then pulled onto the street after Mack and Sarah.

When I was absolutely certain all was well with Charlie I turned around and plopped down into my seat.

Charles handed me his shirt, "Take your shirt off and put this on. It's polypro, it will keep your body heat in and warm you up."

The shirt was thin, warm, and felt like a dive skin.

I wasn't about to argue. In the darkness of the Blazer I pulled my t-shirt over my head and quickly pulled on his shirt. Which was a little loose but warmer then my chilled and soaked cotton shirt.

"Pull your hair up and get it off your neck. Is there a hat in that bag?"

In the bag by my feet?

Charlie's bag. "No, just stuff for Charlie." But I did twist my hair up and manage to get it in a bun. I them hooked up my seatbelt and tucked my bare feet under my wet shorts.

Once more I peeked back at Charlie.

"Make sure those vents are blowing on you. I don't want you getting sick." While he drove on the less then good condition roads, we're talking potholes everywhere, he reached into the back where he had set the bag'o'bricks on the floor. Then as if it weighed nothing he hefted it with one arm and set it on the divider console between us. "Dig through there. There's a thermal blanket and watch cap in there. Put the hat on and cover yourself with the blanket. It's silvery."

Fine, I wasn't about to argue. Still trembling I dug around and through the bag of tools and weapons. It was mighty full. While I dug I could see Charles fidgeting in his seat. As a mother of a four year old 'ants in his pants' was the first thing to come to mind. But I remained mum. Eventually I found the knitted cap by feel and pulled it on over my hair. It was soft from wear and a little sandy.

"Those board shorts you're wearing, what size are they?"

What kind of question was that?  
"I don't know. They're Armando's…large? Big and husky." How should I know.

Charles then held me lightweight pants. Much like the material of his shirt that I had on, which was getting pretty toasty. "Put these on and give me the shorts you have on."

Oh my God he was naked and serious. Even in the dark I could tell he was serious.

"Charles, you'll get cold," I argued, then my ass actually left the seat as the Blazer hit a pothole the size of a Jacuzzi. Thank God I was buckled in.

"Don't argue. Take the pants. They're polypro and will dry quickly. Plus I'm not cold…don't worry about me."

I hesitated but eventually slid out of the large shorts Armando had given me and handed them over.


	17. Chapter 17

**17.**

**Charles.**

Mack's voice came over the earpiece as I drove along a paved road that could have been an obstacle course in the X-Games.

"I'm stopping up here. The Mouth has to pee. Go ahead and I'll slide in your six and make sure we're not being followed."

Leap-frogging, the un-official term for what we had been doing throughout the night. With the mic attached to my earpiece mere centimeters away from my lips, I answered him, "I haven't seen any lights back there. It won't be long before the sun comes up though."

Once again I peered in the mirrors. Nothing but a dark sky from the storm. I peeked downwards and saw Charlie stirring. He'd wake up soon. With a quick glance over at Victoria, who was sound asleep, she'd sleep another four hours if she wasn't woken. She'd slept like the dead. As if she hadn't had a good nights sleep in years. Which for some reason pissed me off.

"Roger that," Mack answered, clear and distinct female yelling was obvious in the background of his transmission.

The Mouth, what a fitting name for Sarah.

She must not have been happy with her nickname.

As I steered around a pothole that took up my entire lane, Charlie woke up. His little voice carried, "Mommy!"

Oh shit.

Victoria stirred and I whipped around, luckily the road was deserted, except for Mack a few miles ahead. I reached back with my arm and patted his soft warm arm, "Ssshhhh, mommy's sleeping."

I heard him move around and then he was standing on the console divider. He climbed right over and hopped in my lap. Brittany Spear would have been so proud. "Me drive. Me drive. Me do, me do. Aunty Sarah let me do. Me help."

His little hands grabbed the bottom of the wheel.

His little feet hardly went past my knees.

His curls were gone. They had shaved his head. Like she had dyed her hair. It was a good thing, changing appearances was always good. Keep them guessing. He looked up at me with hopeful dark eyes.

There wasn't a chance he was getting the wheel away from me.

What would it hurt?

"Do you know who I am," I asked him, glancing back from the road to him.

Vigorously he nodded, "In the picture."

I was in the picture?

"Who am I," I pressed as he pretended to steer. Thrilled with himself. I opened my legs and his butt hit the seat. Giving us both more room. I even moved the steering wheel up.

He reached for the light dimmer, but I grabbed his little hand and put it back beside the other, "Who am I Charlie?"

"Daddy Tarles," he replied.

Even with that little speech impediment I understood. We passed Mack's truck on the side of the road. And I peeked over at Victoria, tucked under the silver blanket, still sound asleep. She had been telling Charlie about me. She had showed him a picture of me.

"Did mommy tell you where I was? Where do I live?"

As I steered around a turtle crossing the road and avoided another pothole, he eagerly helped.

"Charlie, where do I live?"

He looked straight up at me, "War."

War?

"Where?"

"Raq," he told me, then tried to steer the wheel. He reached up for the gear shifter and I grabbed his little hand. The war, Iraq. She had been telling him I was in Iraq. Well that wasn't completely untrue. "Mommy told you I live in Iraq?"

He nodded, "Fight bad guys. Sarah fight bad guy too. She hit one with car. Boom, bump bump."

**Near the border of Guatemala. San Ignacio, Belize…**

"Me pee-pee, me go, me go, me do, me do!"

I looked down at my tiny son who was at my side in the gas station, picking out some fruit for breakfast, and drinks, when suddenly he had to pee.

"I'll take him," Victoria yawned.

Dressed from head to toe in my Polypro, which clung to her every curve, curves she didn't seem to notice. Which was a shame. After all she was wearing men's board shorts and t-shirts. It was a pity. Then there was the watch cap on her head. She looked like some sort of sexy cat burglar and she had no clue. Plus she was sleepy. So she was flushed: her cheeks and neck. At least she was warm.

As she scooped up Charlie and carried him outside, to where the port'a'poties were, I couldn't help but watch.

She definitely wasn't the same person.

But there were new parts of her, things, I could really definitely appreciate.

Mack's voice came over the earpiece in my ear.

He was outside. Watching, I was paying for gas and buying breakfast. "The Queen and Prince are heading out to the johns. They are in my sight." Then came the Mouth's complaints, "Why is she the Queen and I'm the…" Then his transmission ended.

Did her mouth ever close?

Quickly I grabbed two jugs of water. A bag of beef jerky and a bag of trail mix. Then another bag of jerky. Some more Plantains. A couple bottles of oil and a fix-a-flat kit.

I walked to the counter and then paid the guy. A mere $336.18 Belizean dollars. Or $115.14 American, I paid in Belize, just another poor local. And then I was out of the shoddy gas station.

I walked to Mack's truck and gave him a jug of water. Some oil, fruit, the trail mix, and the flat kit. He had a bad looking tire.

Sarah was still bitching about her handle.

After he put everything in the truck he pointed to the side of the gas station, "They went in the ladies room."

Ok, I'd give them a minute.

I walked to the Blazer I had stolen, bought gas for, and would drive for as long as possible. I opened the back door and put the supplies in. Charlie's bag had appeared on the floor. Had Sarah put that in? Or had it magically appeared? Did I care?

Charlie would probably be hungry. Was there any food in there? Bottles? Did four year olds drink bottles? I grabbed it and dug around. There were clothes, tippy cups, bags of finger food, toddler food, toys, pretty much everything he could need. On the bottom were papers. Documents. Everything she needed and something shiny. It caught the glint in the rising sun. If it was jewelry I was going to die.

I lifted it out and actually almost died. My heart skipped a beat. In my hand I was holding the Congressional Medal of Honor. The highest medal the American Military awarded. Why was it in Victoria's diaper bag?


	18. Chapter 18

18.

For no good reason Charlie began to scream. He screamed and screamed and screamed from where he was seated on the toilet and pointed upwards.

I looked upwards in the single toliet bathroom.

There were green lizards all over the ceiling. The ceiling was completely green. They covered every single inch of ceiling. Oh dear God. I knelt down and tried to calm him down, "Sweetie, monkey, calm down. It's just little lizards. Lizards sweetie, don't scream, they are harmless. Charlie stop screaming."

He looked at me.

Face red, tears rolling down his cheeks as he pointed upwards.

"Are you done?"

Charlie nodded, when I reached for toilet paper he shouted, "Me do! Me do!"

Ok, he could do it. I gave birth to the most independent four year old in the world. Thank you Charles.

Then he pointed up again and screamed.

Oh my dear God.

The bathroom door that had a single chain latch was opened and then stopped by said lock. Charlie looked over at the door and I called out tiredly, "Occupied. Five more minutes."

And then the door was kicked in.

Both Charlie and I screamed, I grabbed the first thing I could, a can of air freshener and threw it, just as Charles came through the door, with a handgun pointed right at me.

I froze.

He froze, and then Mack also came on in, armed too.

Well we were having a party weren't we?

Charlie kept screaming. Lizards forgotten.

He hopped off the toilet, finally done, and ran over to me. His little arms wrapped around my leg and Charles said, "I heard him screaming."

I closed my eyes and pointed upwards.

Then came Mack's voice, "Huh. How about that?"

Yeah, how about that.

When I opened my eyes Mack was gone. Charles no longer held the gun. He licked his lips and pointed, "I'll…watch the door."

You do that, I thought.

Then looked back to my son and cleaned him up. Washed his little hands and then mine. As we headed for the door Charlie pointed, "Bye-bye lizard."

I waved with him.

We waved good-bye to the lizards.

I took his little hand and walked out into the brightening morning.

**That afternoon…**

Guatemala was just beautiful.

It was green and gorgeous and just amazing…from the car window. Until Mack's truck lost two tires. Naturally we turned back and then Mack decided we needed a plane. Which seemed logical to me. Although I could not fly said plane. So while Mack and Charles looked over a map, and Sarah braided her hair, I set Charlie by her side, "Watch him."

Then I walked to the truck, which was on the side of the dirt road. Both men looked at me and I asked, "So…which one of you can fly a plane? You know, out of mild curiosity."

A smile tugged on Charles's face.

Mack pointed to the map. "We have a friend."

A friend you say? Really? This thought was obviously on my face. Charles stepped close and pointed to a place on the map. His leg touched mine. Along with his side. He was so firm and warm. What was I? Thirteen? But I kept it to myself.

"He's here in a resort. An eco-lodge. From here we can contact Ryan sooner, it's a lot closer then Panama." He reached over the hood and showed me where we were, "From here to there is maybe twelve miles, not far, but it's through the rain forest. If we go around the forest and follow the roads it'll take a couple days."

Ok. Sounded good to me.

I didn't want to know how they knew we were going to Panama. But I had to ask, "Why not use that phone you have? Call Dad that way?"

Mack's head whipped around to Sarah.

Oh dear God what did she do? Did I want to know? I looked to Charles and then to Mack, "Where's the phone?"

"The _Mouth_ broke it."

Sarah broke the phone, "How?"  
"She threw it out the window when she couldn't get through to the colonel. She didn't have the clearance…so she just _**threw**_ it out the _**window **_of a_** moving vehicle**_!"

So he was apparently still emotional about it.

"She's a passionate person," I told him.

"She's about to be a dead person if she doesn't…" He began, but Charles whipped his head around and glared, "You will not lay a hand on her."

Mack seemed surprised. But it quickly passed, very quickly.

I felt the need to step in.

"Regardless of the phone, boys, what about those pesky Ukrainians? Are they still there? Can you tell using your Special Force Spidey Sense?" I was wondering about them. They were quite persistent.

"Don't worry about them. They're not back there," Charles told me.

"How do you know," I wanted to know. Not that I didn't trust him, I did. But they were mighty persistent and had been pretty good at finding us previously.

Mack sighed, he then added, "Just trust us."

Ok, fine.

Trust them, not a problem.

I rubbed my neck and looked back at the map. The collar of the Polypro hid the little scrape from the bullet that kissed me. There was already a scab on it. I wasn't about to mess with it.

Then Charles fingers touched mine.

He stepped behind me and pulled the collar of said shirt down.

"The Mouth can carry the child. She's not carrying any gear. Victoria, can you carry anything? What's wrong with your neck?"

The word _nothing_ was on the tip of my lips.

Charles told him, "One grazed her." He pulled the collar of my shirt down looking for something, anything. Then he found the other one. He told Mack, "Something light. No backpack."

His fingertips brushed the two tattoos I had on my shoulder. Then he let the shirt go back in place.

Mack spoke up, "So does the eco-lodge sound like a good place for us to drop you off? We have to get back stateside. We won't leave till Ryan knows where you all are."

Woohoo! I now knew the plan. "That's wonderful," I told him. Quite pleased that Sarah was remaining silent. She and Mack must have had a _come to Jesus meeting_ when she threw the phone out the window.

Then Charles added, "I'll stay with them until Ryan comes. I'm not leaving Victoria or Charlie."


	19. Chapter 19

**19.**

**Charles.**

Charlie held one of Sarah's hands and one of Victoria's hands and swung between them on our trek through the rainforest. Utterly thrilled with life. As if there wasn't a problem in the world, he laughed and swung, chanting, "More more! Again again!" And an occasional, "Me do!"

Victoria had given birth to the most independent four year old in the world.

Mack was somewhere ahead of us, behind us, he was on point for now. There were only three more miles to the eco-lodge, he'd be on point until then. Since we were making excellent time we'd probably even make it in time for dinner.

That was until Sarah stopped.

She just stopped and let go of Charlie. Then to my complete surprise she threw her backpack off and pulled off her shirt, she never screamed. When Victoria looked to her Sarah told her sister in a panicked voice, "Bee! Bee! It went down my shirt and…OW!"

Annoyed, I told Mack in my earpiece, "Hold on a minute. Sarah got stung by a bee."

I realized that there was a problem when Victoria dumped out Charlie's diaper bag that Sarah had dropped. She just dumped everything onto the ground and dug around for something. I grabbed Charlie's hand and then saw what she was after.

An Epi-Pen.

She popped the cap off the pen and I noticed that Sarah's face was bright red, she was gasping for air. She was deathly allergic to bee's. Victoria smacked the pen into Sarah's bare thigh and looked to me, "Take Charlie up there with Mack. There's a hive around here and he's allergic too. I only have one more pen."

Oh well, that was pretty important information.

I hurried away with him. Quickly I pulled him up into my arms and realized he had some weight to him. "Me lergic," he confirmed with a nod. My son was a good forty pounds, possibly even fifty. There were no diapers on him either. Charlie was potty-trained. He was a complete little person.

It was bizarre.

Holding a little person that was half of me.

With slight effort I found Mack and handed him my son, which was getting a little harder to fathom, especially the more I thought about it. "Sarah got stung by a bee and he and she are allergic. I'm going to go help Victoria…just, keep him away from bee's."

With ease Mack balanced my son on his hip. The hip without his thigh holster. Good thing he could use both hands to shoot with. He then looked to my son who just seemed at ease with the man, who must have exuded a fatherly pheromone.

"Do we need to take ten?"

I shrugged, "Not sure. I'll let you know."

Mack looked back to Charlie as I took off through the dense green forest I hauled ass back the way I came, which seemed a little longer then I originally thought.

When I found them Sarah was complaining. Color me surprised. And Victoria was picking up the contents of the bag. At the sight of me she asked, "Could you carry her for me? I'll carry your bag."

Like hell she would.

So I went over to Sarah and scooped her up with ease. She wasn't that heavy. A little lighter then I originally thought. And then I heard it. It was clear as day. The sound of a black hawk flying low, probably mere inches from the treetops. Neither Sarah nor Victoria seemed surprised. Sarah told her sister, "Don't forget my medal! Did that come out?"

While I listened Sarah noticed and informed me, "English Special Forces. They train in these parts."

Excuse me? I blinked and Victoria held up the Medal of Honor. "It's right here."

Mack's voice came over the piece in my ear, "You hear that?"

I answered him, "The Mouth say's it's the Brit's training."

Sarah rolled her eyes and Victoria stood, bag over her shoulder, which I grabbed from her before she made it three feet. If she thought she was going to be carrying anything then she had another thing coming. She gave me a dirty look and I didn't care.

**The Lodge…**

I carried Sarah all the way to the lodge, which was a series of little cabins in the rainforest connected by stone paths, to a main lodge on several acres of lush forest and pasture land. It was amazing. Owned by a retired Operator and his wife.

Eventually we found a dirt road which lead through a horse pasture in the valley of a mountain. We had walked halfway through it, well, Mack carried Charlie to keep him away from piles of horse poo, while I carried Sarah, and Victoria walked between the two of us, when a batter pick-up resembling Mack's approached.

We stopped and I dropped Sarah.

Mack turned and handed Charlie to Victoria, incase we needed to shoot someone. I placed my hand on her arm, "Get behind me. If someone starts shooting get down and towards the river."

She listened.

In a matter of seconds she hid behind me, Charlie held close.

It was all good though. As the truck came closer we saw it was none other then the owner, Michael Ho, who gaped at us disbelievingly. He stopped the truck and climbed out, two German Shepard's hopped out too. "What in the hell are you two doing here?"

Mack looked back at me.

Then he looked back to Michael who had a Mohawk now. "Long story. You have an open room? A hot meal? A phone to call Ryan?"

With a jerk of his thumb he motioned, "Get in."

No questions asked.

He didn't want to know where we were, how we had appeared, or what we had been doing, not even who the girls were.

Sarah hopped up, "I call shotgun." Bee sting forgotten now that there was a seat for her to ride in. Victoria handed her Charlie, "Keep him on your lap then." She didn't seem to be bothered. They had the co-parenting thing down pat. She just put him on her hip and marched over to the passenger door. Another woman was helping raise my son.

Victoria then followed Mack around to the bed of the truck. Which was full of supplies, tools, a bale of hale, and some netting. He hopped up and reached down, offering her a hand , which she accepted without hesitation.

Not that I cared or anything.

It wasn't like he was flirting with her or anything dis-honorable. He was just being polite…gentlemanly.

I just had a sudden urge to shoot him in the foot. I didn't though. I climbed into the bed of the truck and pounded on the side.

The truck lurched forward and then bounced through the field and then onto the bumpier road. Mack had braced himself from where he was seated on the tire well, and I had braced myself on the other tire well.

Victoria however slipped on the net. Her ass almost hit the bottom of the truck's bed. Except for the fact I grabbed her around her waist and Mack had her by her thigh, she was mere inches away from the bed. He then dropped her. Being a smart man and all, realizing I had her, which allowed me to drag her towards me. It wasn't hard to notice that her breasts had indeed gotten bigger. Which was obvious when she wore the Polypro, but also when my hand caught her and happened to grab that area. Shit, what was I, some horny thirteen year old again?

She let out a shaky breath.

Then leant back against me. She rested her head against the inside of my thigh. Wrapped her arms around my calves and relaxed. She even closed her eyes. As if she hadn't been able to relax before, as if she were suddenly safe.

I didn't know whether to be pleased or offended.

So I looked to Mack who had his eyes on the mountains behind us.

What was I supposed to do?

I looked back down at her and did the first thing that came to mind. I brushed my fingers lightly over her cheek. Over the soft skin of her neck and ear. She had taken her earrings out. The holes were sealed up.

**Eco-Lodge Dining Area / River Overview / Lounge…**

After a filling meal we went to the office.

Well, in truth he grabbed my ear and drug me from the dining area and up the stone walk, while Victoria carried our son into the free cabin, which Michael's wife had given her and Sarah, for his bath and he was not happy about it. While Sarah stayed behind and flirted with the bartender in an attempt to get over Armando.

I didn't bother telling her casual sex never helped get someone out of your mind.

She wasn't my problem.

I had enough problems.

"Would you happen to have a phone," Mack inquired, still holding my ear. Which I got free, adding, "Something similar to the satellite phone that vanished around the time you retired."

The fake leg from his knee down was the reason why.

Michael smiled.

He opened the door to his office, a stone building atop a hill that overlooked the entire Green lodge. "Maybe. Check by my filing cabinet. There should be a case on the floor covered with Hello Kitty stickers.

It was getting dark out.

I peeked down the hill and watched Victoria, making sure she made it to the cabin before I went in the office.


	20. Chapter 20

**20.**

I had given birth to a frog.

Charlie hopped all around the tiled shower stall and made frog noises while I washed his clothes in the bathroom sink. When I peeked in on him he was either hopping around or on his stomach swimming in the shower water.

When shower time was over he escaped and ran around the small rock floor cottage, which had two nice beds, screen all around, and wooden walls. Very green and very rustic, Sarah was going to be horrified. Sarah didn't even camp.

I managed to dry Charlie off and get a pair of socks and The Wiggles underwear on him.

Then I got him in bed and under the big white sheets.

After I checked for bugs. We were in the rainforest after all.

I then kissed my son goodnight and prayed he would fall asleep. That it would not be a long night of staying awake. I needed to get some sleep too.

When he was finally asleep I locked the door and hopped in the shower.

I really needed to take a nice hot scalding shower and wash the past day and night off and away. Clean the wounds on my neck and make sure my feet were still attached.

I piled the Polypro in the sink to wash out.

Then I boiled myself in the shower.

Cleaned up the scabs on my neck as best as I could with soap. Then my feet which really needed a massage and a pedicure. I wiggled my toes and noticed there was chipped nail polish. The horror. The next place we went to had better have a spa.

Eventually I got out of the shower, when the hot water ran out.

Stepped out of the shower and there was Charles seated on the edge of the sink. He did hand me a towel that I quickly grabbed from him, and wrapped around me like the Sultans Virgin Daughter. I had his son and didn't want him to see me naked, how logical was that?

Once the towel was secure I stepped out.

I almost asked how he got in and then decided against it, "Is Charlie still asleep?"

He nodded, "Yeah, his heart rate is steady and his breathing is good. He's out like a light."

All I could do was smile.

I peeked out at our sleeping son and inquired, "Did you have to go do work things with Mack?"

"They're done."

Ok, I wasn't about to fill any spaces of silence. So I walked out into the cottage area, the whole thing was one room and a wall that divided the bathroom from the bedroom.

"Where is Mack sleeping," I wanted to know.

Charles shrugged and stepped into the bedroom area. Great, well he could stay but there was something he needed to know. So I turned and faced him as I made sure the door was locked, "Charles, you are welcome to stay in here with us. But…I am not having sex with you, or anyone."

He blinked, mildly surprised.

I didn't want him thinking there was anyone else. There wasn't.

He nodded and moved as I came back in the bathroom and washed the Polypro. "Can I take a shower?"  
"There's no hot water," I told him which made him smile, "Toss your clothes out and I'll wash them in the sink too."

For most the time he was in the cool / lukewarm shower we chatted about absolutely nothing of importance. The Medal of Honor in my bag, which had belonged to Sarah's late fiancé. The food at dinner. Where I had gotten my tattoos, not just the one's on my back. His new car and motorcycle. All while I rinsed out the clothes and hung them over the shower curtain.

When he came out I gave him a towel and told him, "Charlie is a restless sleeper. You may want to double knot that towel."

He narrowed his eyes and I hopped onto the empty bed. Secured my towel and climbed under the covers. "He farts in his sleep too."

Charles hit the light in the bathroom and began to dry his curly hair. He then strolled into the bedroom, a mere four inches from the bathroom, and peeked down at Charlie while I stole both pillows on my bed.

He then hit the lights for bedroom and I felt him climb onto my bed. Then he crawled over me and slid under the covers. A firm bare thigh brush mine and I declared, "You better not be naked."

Charles plopped down beside me and rolled onto his side, he then tried to take my pillow. He succeeded and got one. Which allowed him to prop himself on his side and look down at me.

Oh that was just perfect.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "What? Why are you staring at me like that, doesn't Mack need your company?"

"We called Ryan."

Ok, he had my interest. I placed my hands strategically on my chest over the white blanket, "And…is he ok? Why wasn't he answering my calls?"

Charles did seem concerned.

In fact, he was borderline relaxed. He reached up and began to trace his fingers through my wet hair. "Work stuff. He's flying down here."

My Dad was coming down here!

"Then what?"

Charles shrugged, which made the white blanket that somehow glowed in the moonlight move. Like I really needed to see his body. A body that had been spending quality time at the gym. "I'm going to ask him about visiting you and Charlie. Phone calls. Whatever until it's safe for the both of you to return home."

I wasn't surprised.

But I didn't know how to react. Was I supposed to be excited? Happy? I loved the man and I had grieved over him like a widow would. "Do you want to," I asked, "Charles, I love you. I'll always love you. But I don't want you hanging around out of some perverse male honor code."

"I thought it might be that," he admitted, still utterly fascinated with my hair. There was something on his mind, on the tip of his tongue. I wanted to reach out and touch him. Comfort him. Instead I kept my hands to myself as he told me, "I…I've buried you both once. I think once is enough."

**Early that morning…**

I woke up because Charles was moving.

He had been sound asleep slumped over me, arm flung over my shoulders and his face buried against the back of my neck, and ever so often I'd hear the hint of a snore from him.

Across the tiny room I watched Charlie sleep. He'd kicked the blanket off him and had the whole bed to himself.

For several hours I'd drifted in and out of sleep, I'd nap and wake up, watch my son and listen to Charles sleep, then doze back to sleep, and eventually wake up. It was during my nap I woke up as Charles hung over the bed and retrieved a gun from somewhere. A spiffy looking handgun. I rolled onto my back and blinked, trying to process his sudden actions through the morning haze.

Mornings were for the birds.

Then came a soft knock on the door.

Dad's voice then came, "It's me. Open the door."

Oh! Well then, it was Dad. I hadn't seen him in at least four months. I sat up and looked around for my towel that had come off sometime during the night. As Charles wrapped his around his waist again and walked to the door. He flipped the locks and opened the door, letting Dad in, in his camo's with sunglasses hanging on his t-shirt like always. Spiffy as usual.

He peeked down at Charlie and then myself.

"Where's Gerhardt?"

Charles pointed, "He crashed over by the workers bunks I believe."

"Why don't you go find him, wake him, and meet us in the dining area in fifteen. And find Sarah too."


	21. Chapter 21

**21.**

**Charles.**

By the time I tracked down Sarah and woke her ass up, then found Mack and told him Ryan was here, and then got dressed and made it to the dining area that was on an open patio that overlooked a rushing river, breakfast was on the table and Ryan was getting a refill on coffee. Long bench tables carved from tree's lined the center of the patio.

While Victoria picked at some fruit Ryan was telling her something serious, and beside him happily eating fruit on a fork was my son. Who looked up at Ryan and earned a kind smile from the normally hard-ass colonel.

Ryan had a relationship with my son.

My son knew his grandfather, hell, Ryan wasn't even his biological grandfather and he had a relationship with _my_ son. Who I had been under the impression of being dead for nearly five years.

Maybe it was the fact I was hungry. Or maybe it was because I hadn't had sex in weeks. Or that it had been a pretty bad couple of days…I had the urge to go knock some of Ryan's teeth out.

I walked right on over and plopped down on the wooden bench beside Victoria. I filled up a glass with some sweet limeade as Ryan told me, "Mack, you and I are heading back stateside within the hour. Victoria, Sarah, and Charlie are going to stay here. There have been some changes which we'll discuss later on. Is Mack awake?"

Ignoring that last part, I sipped the sweetly bitter juice, "How long will she be here?"

Ryan sipped his coffee. He patted my son on the head and looked down at his head of shaved hair like a doting grandfather, "We'll discuss it later. Let me enjoy my breakfast with my family, Grey."

If I could have reached across the table and snapped off his head I would have. But Mack arrived and grabbed a mug of coffee from the bar. He sat on the other side of Victoria across from Ryan, and then Sarah showed up.

She stumbled to the bar and drank three consecutive mugs of coffee, and carried her fourth refill over to the table, plopped down beside Ryan, and very gingerly placed her head on the table.

Hangover if I ever saw one.

She must have been fond of this Armando fellow.

As the waiter came over and brought plates of breakfast meat and fruits for us to select from, Ryan leant across the table and whispered to Victoria. Mack didn't notice or care. He grabbed several sausage links from one plate and plopped them on his, along with some papaya and pineapple.

I watched them like a hawk.

Victoria patted my shoulder and stood. She then walked from the table and out toward the cabins, in Armando's shorts and t-shirt. Which shouldn't have annoyed me. I should have been glad he was looking out for her…I should have.

I looked back at the colonel who was watching my son smug as a cat. The bastard had seen my son on more then one occasion and never told me.

An urge to knock teeth out came.

Then I got up and went after Victoria.

By the time I was out of the little dining area thing I spotted her stroll into her cabin, she left the door open.

I hauled ass up the stone walk and down the little path to the cabin.

When I stepped into the cabin we had stayed in I noticed a big black duffel on the floor. Compliments of Ryan no doubt. She was bent over and digging through Charlie's bag. I'd reached the conclusion it wasn't a diaper bag since he wore big-boy underwear. But that didn't make me freeze. Armando's board shorts rode low on her hips and there was a slight swell of buttock, there was a tattoo on the right buttock swell. She had yet another tattoo on her rump. It was some sort of Koala Bear in the traditional Australian Aborigine drawing style. So far from mainstream it was unique. It was Victoria. Like the other two tattoos on her shoulder blade I had found last night. Coordinates. They had to be someplace special. One was somewhere in Spain, maybe Barcelona. The other had been Hebrew.

After she found whatever she was looking for she stood and turned, then froze at the sight of me and covered her mouth. Suppressing a shriek.

I kicked the door closed and saw a thick package in her hand. About the size of a hardcover book and as thick, packaged to mail.

"God you scared me. Here, this is for you."

She handed it to me.

It had some good weight to it. Belizean postage and Ryan's address but with my name. "What is it? It better not be a death letter."

With a smile she made a maybe gesture, "It's pictures of us. Me, the baby, and Sarah. Every year I'd write you a letter…I told Sarah if anything ever happened to me to mail that to you. I told the one contact we always had too. I wanted you to know. Everywhere we went I had to repackage and put different postage on it…the different postage is in there too, you know, so you could know where we were I guess. Dad told me you would probably want it now." She licked her lips and crossed her arms, then forced a smile, nervous.

"I know we weren't supposed to keep pictures but…I wanted you to have some record of us," she admitted.

My lord she had a photo-album/death-letter.

"You're mad."

"Not at you," I told her.

She seemed relieved but then covered her mouth with her hand again. Something she did when she was upset. When she clenched her jaw and didn't want anyone to see.

Package in hand I walked right up to her, but she placed her hand on my chest and stopped me, "I don't want a goodbye kiss."

She thought I was leaving. Well, I was, Ryan apparently had convinced her of it and I was pretty sure I was leaving with him and Mack. "I'm coming back," I promised her.

"Then kiss me hello the next time you see me."


	22. Chapter 22

**22.**

**Charles.**

**2 weeks later…**

Ryan was sending me out in a day that never bothered me before, never once. I loved my job. I loved the challenge and skill it demanded from me. But my mind was busy. I was planning the assassination of a gang leader and the next two in command beneath him. After some simple research into Victoria I had found out plenty about the gang member who had threatened her.

He was wanted not only by the North Carolina police but INS and DEA. But he always seemed to slip through their fingers, or do his work from jail.

So he had to go.

Him and his second and third.

It wasn't like I was killing Gandhi or the Pope, he was a thug who was feared. If she was coming home it had to be safe. I chewed on the back of my pen and sipped my beer in the workroom. Looking over maps of the city street he lived on, worked on, and his crew too.

I already knew what gun I was using. Where it would go when I had finished. It'd never see the light of day again. It'd be a nighttime kill. I needed a high ground to take the shots though.

Ryan was working on wrapping up the Ukrainian matter, inner turmoil within an already shaky faction did wonders.

With a tapping of the bottle on my chin I pondered. The door behind me opened and I never moved. I didn't care who came in. I was only reading maps.

"You are a hard man to find."

It was Bob.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Bob, Jonas and Mack. All three strolled right in and took seats around the round table.

Jonas had a wooden box and Mack had a bottle of the bubbly.

"Obviously not hard enough. What's the occasion? Are you and Molly expecting Top?"

Jonas laughed and Mack popped the cork from the champagne. Bob handed out four red plastic glasses. All while Jonas told me, "A celebration toast for you, Mr. Grey."

A celebration toast?

Confused I looked to Mack and took the half full glass of cold bubbly handed to me. "For me?"

"A toast to fatherhood," Bob filled in, seeing my confusion.

It made me laugh.

I smelled the bubbly as Jonas got the box unwrapped. It was a box of cigars. Complete with "**It's a Boy**" in blue block letters on the top.

"A little overdue, but you can't kill tradition. Someone better have a lighter," Jonas declared. He freed the cigars and handed them out.

The scene seemed very familiar, much like what happened when Bob announced the birth of Teddy.

I caught Mack's eye and knew he had spilled the beans. He grabbed a book of matches from his back pant's pocket.

When we all had a plastic glass of chilled champagne and a lit cigar in the other hand, Jonas raised his glass high, we followed suit. "Even though this is long over-due, here's to fatherhood, sons, daughters, and wives: which we all knew would conquer Mr. Grey one day."

"She's not his wife, Top," Mack added.

My grin wouldn't stop.

And then Bob added, "Ok, well, here's to Charles and his new additions and his short-lived bachelorhood. Which will probably end when said new additions arrive and meet our wives."

I then took a nice long sip of my bubbly and a drag off the cheap fatherhood cigar.

I then looked to Jonas, "You don't think they'll care we're not married?"

Mack laughed and Bob made a face.

Oh good, maybe they were safer in Guatemala.

The smirk on Jonas's face told me the women would care.

The door opened and I sipped more bubbly, unable to tell if it was good or bad. Did the temperature make a difference.

In following the tradition, Jonas stomped his foot on the floor, getting our attention, "Men. It is time to impart our fatherly knowledge to Mr. Grey, I'll start…always always always check with the wife. Always. No matter what the little one tells you."

Ok, that sounded wise.

"Hide every battery in the house on Christmas Eve," Mack advised.

That was a good one. I was definitely doing that. "But don't hide the batteries from the wife," Mack added, laughing so hard champagne almost came out his nose.

"She won't need batteries," I spat.

Jonas remained silent on the subject but his smile was wide as a mile. And Bob jumped in, "Those musical potty training toilets, they don't work."

"Oh Grey doesn't have to worry about that. Victoria has Charlie potty trained. The kid eats everything and goes to bed on command." Mack added.

Bob's eyes widened, "How old is this baby?"

"Four," I told him, puffing away.

He was still connecting dots when Ryan strolled in, looked at the four of us and sighed looking right at Bob and the cigars. Bob shook his head and pointed to me, "It's not me this time. Charles is a father."

Jonas nodded and Mack whipped his head around, "Would you like a cigar? You're the grandfather after all. Have some bubbly with us."

I ignored the confused look on Bob's face.

Ryan paused and thought about it.

Then he held out a hand, "Give me a cigar men. Keep this under wraps for now."


	23. Chapter 23

**23.**

**Charles**

**Three months later…**

"Grey, come here for a moment."

Both Bob and I paused in the hall. I waved him off, "I'll see you later." It's not like I needed to shower, eat, and sleep. Oh no. I'd only been in Uzbekistan for the past five weeks.

I adjusted the three-ton bag on my shoulder and rolled my neck. It popped three times on my way to Colonel Ryan.

He had a file in hand.

"Son, a few weeks ago three men were found shot to death in Raleigh. All gang members. I don't know if you are aware of who they are or not." He handed me a three-week-old paper with three familiar faces on it. I looked over it. Saw a few lines, 'police have no leads and fear the professional style murders will go unsolved…' which would be such a devastating thing for humanity.

"What about it?"

Ryan eyed me.

He knew, there was not a doubt in my mind.

I adjusted the pack again.

"The weapon used was a 50 caliber rifle," the colonel added.

Which was in pieces. Hidden in many places and would never ever see the light of day again. I had made sure of that. "It's a powerful rifle."

I handed him the article back.

"The police think it was a professional hit from a rival gang. After all, the shooter took out the three men in control of the gang."

I needed to show some reaction. "What do you want me to do about it? Send the gang a sympathy card?" If he said yes I was hitting him right in the face.

Ryan considered me again.

He then replied off handedly while opening the folder in his hand, "I'd send them a thank you card if I were you."

The few souls in the hall were oblivious. We were in the cave after all.

"Take two weeks and go away for a while, be gone. I don't want to hear a peep out of you."

Ok…I hadn't done anything bad in Uzbekistan, so he was covering for my ass over something. I had no idea what. Or he was working on something else, something concerning Victoria. He handed me the folder, "Take this with you. Move her somewhere. I've found the leak here. Everything's in there if you're curious, or feel the need to share it with her."

Ryan then took a card from the pockets on his pant leg, "This is for Charlie."

A box.

I took it.

It was small and wrapped in blue shiny paper. When I looked at him curiously he told me, "Charlie turns five in a week."

**The Locker Room…**

Bob looked at the little blue box as I dug through my locker and dressed as quickly as possible. I had to stop by my apartment to get one of my passports. I didn't want to travel as myself. Plus I had to look through the papers and things Victoria had given me, when was my son's birthday? That was need to know information.

I yanked a t-shirt over my head and managed to not notice Hector's empty locker, which had always been a killer.

"Where are you heading?"

I was about to tell him, but then I remembered what Ryan had said about the leak. So I just winked at him.

Bob gave the box a little shake.

There was something small and hard in it.

While I put on my watch and belt, I glanced up at the picture of Victoria and Charlie. They were in Paris. He was newborn, still red. So small and tiny.

"When will you be back?"

"Two weeks. I'll bring back something for Serena, don't worry."

There were more questions on his face, but he knew from my face I was answering anything.

**Guatemala: two days later…**

Sleep was for the weak.

I didn't sleep on the plane or on the van ride from the airport in Belize City, to Guatemala, a mere seven hour ride, nor did the change in time zones seem to bother me.

When we stopped for food I ate three plates of the Chicken rice and beans like a starved man.

Then I took a bus into Guatemala as far as the road where the lodge was, where I walked a mere five miles, the way we had gone before. I had almost made it to the cow pasture when Michael's truck appeared.

He drove on over to me and lowered his window, utterly amazed, "Hey stranger."

He still had his ponytail.

I adjusted my pack, "Mind if I hang out for a week or two?"

He snickered.

I peeked in the truck and saw a big old to-do list.

"Not at all, I'll let you have today off, but tomorrow I'll need help fencing." He looked me over and asked, "I'm heading into town, you wanna come?"

No way, I was almost there. My family was only a few miles away. "Nope. I want to go find my woman and child."

As the truck creeped forward Michael added, "On my way out she was working on the computer with Risa in the office."

Good to know.

I waved to him and continued on to the cow pasture and then the horse pasture, and then onto the paved road that wound through the sharp hills and steep mountain, until little cabins began to appear.

When I reached the top I was glad for the three plates of carbs and proteins. But I was stunned to see none other then Armando. Where the hell had he appeared from? I watched him ride off on horseback with a small group of visitors.

Off into the lush green mountains that surrounded the lodge.

I hurried down the stone path.

Heavy pack bouncing on my back.

A small family of visiting British people passed and the office came into view. I strolled on up and past a German Shepard sleeping on the grass. It was a warm day I guess.

I walked right up into the open doorway of a tiki-hut looking structure. Risa was at the desk speaking to Victoria, who was standing with her back to me, facing Risa.

A smile curled on Risa's face as Victoria told her about some travel magazine she could advertise the lodge in. Risa saw me, knew who I was, and was waiting for Victoria to notice I guess. So I leant in the doorway and just listened to her speak, her voice.

"They've been calling, wanting to do a spread on green friendly inns, this would really put you on the map."

Risa just nodded, silent, Risa was never silent.

Victoria sighed and ran her fingers through her newly short hair. A spunky looking bob that was really sexy from behind, it showed off her neck and the tattoo on it.

God tattoos were suddenly really sexy.

"Just think about it. I know you two are just doing this for fun, but more people means more money. Sure it'll bring more people here, but if you really push this whole _eco-friendly_ thing, you could really be on the edge of making a change in the way lodges and inns operate."

The tattoo had to be a turtle. A native looking turtle. I'd seen something similar on the way through Belize, a Mayan Turtle maybe.

Then it occurred to me. She'd gotten tattoos of everywhere she had lived.

From behind I could tell she'd lost some weight. She looked better with it on, not that I was into fat chicks. She just looked nicer with more curves. She looked amazing anyway. Maybe she was just more active. I wondered if she was more toned?

"Ummhmm," Risa nodded.

Victoria glanced over her shoulder at me. At the sight of her face a grin came over my face and she dropped the magazine she had been holding. She turned and ran to me, wrapped her bare arms around my neck and hugged me. Her fingers wound into my hair. I hugged her tightly. Pulled her close as I could and kissed her neck , which tasted really good. She smelled like a flower.

I pulled back and found her lips.

I got my kiss. I kissed her hello. For the first time in years I kissed her and found her tongue stud was gone.

Just as she was really getting into it I stopped, I looked around, "Where's Charlie."

"Who…Oh, with…with Sarah and Armando on the tour. They took the horses up for a ride. We could probably catch them before they get too far."

From the desk came Risa's voice, "Or you could go catch up. They'll be gone a few hours, you could spend that time down in the lounge talking. Once Charlie gets back you're alone time will be limited."

Talking…right.

**A few hours later…**

When the showering was over the talking began. Not that there was any talking prior to the shower, there had been, it had been mainly orders, commands, and expressions of happiness.

My hunt for tattoos had been successful in finding all nine as well.

"Armando may have some shorts you can borrow, his bag is under the bed."

I made a face and dug through my pack.

Armando and Sarah had the other bed. The cabin was going to get a tad crowded. At last I found my rolled up jeans and heard the unmistakable voice of Sarah. It came through the open windows and made Victoria smile, and fall back into the messy bed. A very satisfied woman.

"You know what little man! Lets go find _your mother_ and see if she thinks it's so funny!"

I could hear the unmistakable sound of a young child laughing.

I pulled on my jeans and hurried out the front door of the very rustic cabin. Ducked under the hammock and jogged up the steps, in time to see Sarah come around the corner holding Charlie's muddy hand.

At the sight of me she froze.

As if I were the reincarnation of Napoleon.

Charlie spotted me and screeched, "Daddy Tarles," he let go of her hand and ran for me. He came running down the stone path, little sneakers on his feet, pretty much covered in mud. He had a little mini Mohawk on his head and wrapped his muddy arms around my neck.


	24. Chapter 24

_Authors Note: Ok, so I am in FL with the family and apparently my word processors have issues with their computers and uggh! But I have been able to see a episode of the Unit and have discovered Charles had gotten a girlfriend, I was so thrilled! Hope no one gets upset, eek! Anyway, enjoy and review!_

24.

Having him around for two whole weeks was almost like living in some sort of freaky dream that you knew was going to end, so you savored every last minute of it. I relished the two weeks he would be staying with me as if they were the last two weeks of my life. Just watching him with Charlie was enough to make me want to pull out the camera and make a Kodak Moment out of every last minute.

Sure, Charles and Armando had to agree on who got the toilet when and eventually Sarah just made a seating chart.

There was a negative side though. Charlie had a mind like a sponge and picked up _everything_. Included hand gestures, which Charles had sent Armando's way once or twice, as grown men do.

Charlie then decided that like his face he was never again going to wear underwear. Which Sarah found beyond hysterical. And it wasn't so much his choice to go commando that bothered me, which was less laundry for me, but his flinging his "Wiggles Underwear" from our cabin, which then fell down the side a mountain, leaving me to find them all.

He was his father's child.

It was after I had waded through the thick brush on the hunt for eight pairs of color tiny drawers, my legs were all scratched and my feet were all dirty, when Charles magically appeared from above.

He held a hand down to me which I took, letting him haul my ass up with.

I then handed him his sons underwear, "Here. Your son has decided that the underwear is the devil. I have no further use for these."

He looked them over and then set them on the purple hammock that hung in our doorway. The doorway of our little home that he would be leaving tomorrow. Not forever, but I still didn't want him leaving. I had grown so used to having him back.

Fine. I had gotten spoiled and I didn't care.

"That's great...speaking of our child, he's with your sister which gives about an hour alone together."

Oh goody! I grabbed his hand and headed for the cabin door. Charles laughed and tugged me back. I realized that hadn't been what he had in mind and pouted. I took my face in his hands and kissed me. Jesus could the man kiss. No wonder no guy I ever looked at compared to him, Charles did it for me in every way and no one else would ever do.

He kissed me like it was his main purpose in life and made my toes curl. When he paused he grinned against my lips, "Don't worry. I'm not leaving without properly bidding you goodbye. But we can do this later."

With a sigh I kissed him one last time.

"I want a proper goodbye this time," I announced, he narrowed his eyes, "You told me last time you didn't want me to kiss you goodbye."

I didn't and I still didn't, "I never said I wanted you to kiss me goodbye."

It was a mere statement of the fact and the next thing I know he had me pressed up against the side of said cabin, again kissing me, hand on my ass, and one in my hair. As romantic as it was I turned my head, "Charles, there are guests here!" Then he had the nerve to tell me to shut-up before he kissed me again. I should have been offended, instead I was really turned on.

Damn me and my attraction to manly men.

I wound my fingers back through his curly hair, which felt so nice when it curled around my fingertips, and kissed him like it was going out of style. Until I remembered he had wanted some time alone, "Charles."

All I got was a grunt from him.

So I tapped on his strong shoulders and finally got him to meet my gaze. "Romeo, tell me what you were going to tell me and then you can have your dirty way with me."

A look of mock horror crossed his face, "Wait, you mean to tell me that you don't want me you_ make love_ to you."

Ewwww, that was gross.

I made a face of disgust and informed him, "Don't even think about it, I'll kick your ass."

Which made my manly man laugh. He buried his face in my neck and murmured, "Your father thinks you'll be home for Christmas. He faxed me this."

I leaned back into the cabin and he handed me a piece of paper.

Immediately I grabbed the fax and looked at it.

Read it over twice before I believed it. Then I looked at Charles, "Are you serious?"

From the look in his eyes I knew he was dead serious. He kissed me again and suggested, "Let's celebrate."

**Almost an hour later...**

The celebration was grand. It was beyond grand, it was spectacular. I was a very pleased woman.

"What's going to happen when I get home?" I wanted to know, out of mild curiosity. After all there was no pressure. No need to broach the subject gently. Charles was splayed across the bed with his head rested on my stomach.

Tiredly, in a state beyond relaxed he kissed the skin beneath my ribs. "I don't know. Write a tell all book on the sordid love affair of your sister and Armando."

I laughed and wiggled my toes.

Stretched out and asked, "Where would we live? With my dad or you? Do you have a home?"

Charles thought about it.

He moved his lips to speak but Sarah's voice came through the jungle and she was unhappy. We both fell silent for a moment as Armando's voice came behind her, trying to calm her, quiet her.

Her voice came closer and Charles grabbed the blanket from the bed. He pulled it beneath my chin as the door to the cabin opened and slammed, Sarah stormed in and was non-too-pleased. She pointed her finger at me accusingly, "Do you have any idea who Armando is?"

Was this a trick question?

I looked to Charles who seemed genuinely surprised.

We remained mute because she continued to yell and as Armando's voice came closer. "Ask your Dad who he is! He's been following us around since you gave birth to Charlie!"

I lifted a eyebrow in genuine surprise, "Really?"

She nodded and pointed to Charles, "Go ahead and call, ask! See what the sneaky devil has been up to!"

Charles propped himself on a elbow and I remained lounged on my back.

"So. Colonel Ryan probably had several people keep an eye on the three of you, for protection and to make sure no one followed you and to report back to him. I'd be surprised if he hadn't."

When Charles put it that way I wasn't surprised.

Sarah gave him a dirty look.

Armando opened the door, Sarah grabbed the pillow from her bed and hurled it at him. Sarah was not happy in the least. She then began to scream at him and tried to chase him from the doorway, but he was pretty big, and not scared of her. I buried my face against Charles's chest and closed my eyes.


	25. Chapter 25

**25.**

**Charles.**

**The Cave a few days later...**

I found Ryan in his office and after some passionate knocking was let in his office. He didn't seem surprised in the least to see me. Instead he covered whatever he was writing with a piece of paper and looked up, "Can I help you Sgt. Grey?"

I shoved my hands on my pockets.

This was a social visit and all. "You have a man following Victoria and my son around?"

There was no reaction. As if I should not have been surprised or even wasting my breath with such a topic.

"She's my daughter. Why wouldn't I look out for her welfare and the welfare of my grandson?"

I didn't bother to correct him. There was no blood between them. Whatever, I'd seen families with blood ties that weren't as close. "Yeah well, Sarah figured it out. So unless you have more then one spy following them around you're going to have a really moody female on your hands."

Ryan looked back down at his desk, "Not for much longer. I wouldn't trouble yourself with that. You have bigger problems to worry about."

This was news to me.

When he went back to his paperwork I vocally inquired, "What do I have to worry about?"

Colonel Ryan checked his watch.

He then glanced back up at me, "You have two hours to get to Raleigh to pick my daughter and grandson up at the airport. I'd go myself, but the Secretary of State is on her way here and she expects me to be here."


End file.
